From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 1 03:28:12 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 07:28:12 -0400 Subject: Car bomb targets Arab channel, killing 7 Message-ID: One of Ryan's Lackey's business associates, a Shia network engineer from Southern Iraq, was killed in this bomb. Cheers, RAH ------- www.xinhuanet.com XINHUA online CHINA VIEW VIEW CHINA Monday,Nov.1,2004 Car bomb targets Arab channel, killing 7 www.chinaview.cn 2004-10-30 02:04:00 BAGHDAD, Oct. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- A car bomb exploded outside the Al-Arabiya TV's office in Baghdad on Saturday, killing seven people and injuring more than a dozen of others, said the TV channel and hospital sources. Police officer Ziad Tareq said at least seven people were killed and one of them was a woman. Doctors at the nearby Yarmuk Hospital said they received more than 16 wounded. Al-Arabiya said all of the seven killed were workers with it's bureau, located in the wealthy Mansour neighborhood in western Baghdad, where senior Iraqi officials and foreign businessmen resided. The explosion, which took place around 15:10 p.m. (1210 GMT), started a fire and sent black smoke over the area, saw a Xinhua photographer. The fire was put off one hour later and about 30 vehicles were seen damaged. The facade of the office building was deformed and the site was bestrewn with glass and car parts. Three bodies were charred beyond recognition, according to the TV channel. A militant group identified as "1920 Brigades" claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack, said a statement attributed to the group. But its authenticity could not be verified. The group said it accused the "treacherous network" of taking a pro-American tone in its reporting and had kept warning it of possible attacks. Sabah Nayee, former Al-Arabiya Baghdad Bureau Chief, said he knew about the threat and his office could be the target, but believed that the pan-Arab satellite news network was doing right and maintained popularity in Iraq. He said a joint meeting was held inside the building attended by MBC and Saudi news provider Al-Ekhbariya at the time of explosion. But Nayee could not conclude if the attackers were aware of the meeting before unleashing the assault. The two companies were renting the building along with Al-Arabiya, who hired around 50 staff across Iraq. It appeared the first time a popular Arab language media was targeted in car bombings, favored by insurgents to wage attacks against US forces in Iraq and their cooperators. Based in Dubai and a sister news channel of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya has broadcast purported videos and statements from militant groups, including former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network. It was previously temporarily banned by the Iraqi authority from covering news out of Iraq. However, the Saudi-funded channel was known by Iraqis to be more cooprative with the interim government led by Iyad Allawi, especially after he visited Saudi Arabiya earlier this year. End item -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From HLin at nas.edu Mon Nov 1 10:52:31 2004 From: HLin at nas.edu (Lin, Herb) Date: November 1, 2004 10:52:31 AM EST Subject: Call for Nominations - NRC project on Information Fusion and Message-ID: Data Mining Dave - given the interest of your constituency in this subject.. We'd surely appreciate a posting of this notice, since you have access to a broader range of people than we normally have. Thanks. herb CALL FOR NOMINATIONS for a National Research Council study on Technical and Policy Dimensions of Large-scale Government Use of Information Fusion and Data Mining PLEASE POST WIDELY (and apologies for duplicate postings) The subjects of data mining and information fusion are in the forefront of many public policy discussions about how the nation should exploit information technology for purposes such as counter-terrorism, law enforcement, and public health. Recognizing the concerns raised in such discussions, the National Research Council is launching a project that will examine technical and policy issues associated with the large-scale government use of information fusion and data mining for such purposes. In addition to examining the technical problems and needs, it will consider the social and policy issues, such as privacy, that arise with the prospect of such use and consider how alternative approaches to both technology and policy can help to resolve them. The National Research Council (NRC) is the operating arm of the National Academies (), which include the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The National Academies were created by congressional charter to advise the nation on matters of public policy that involve science and technology. The NRC - a non-profit organization - works outside the framework of government to ensure independent advice to the government through the use of committees composed of the nation's top scientists, engineers, and other experts -- all of whom serve pro bono in the national interest to examine specific topics and issues. Within the NRC, this project is being undertaken by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board () in cooperation with the NRC's Committee on National Statistics (). For this project, a broad range of perspectives is required on the committee that will oversee this project. Individuals with expertise are sought in fields such as distributed systems, databases and information retrieval, data mining, intelligent agents, system security, systems integration and architecture, economics, sociology, statistics, political science, intellectual property, privacy, and civil liberties. Committee membership (limited to about 15 individuals) will be based on personal expertise and a dedication to drawing conclusions based on the analysis of data and information, and not on satisfying requirements for political representativeness. And, while it seeks nominations from a wide variety of sources, the National Research Council reserves the exclusive right to determine the membership of the committee. In accordance with NRC policy for all of its studies, committee members will also be vetted for both bias and direct financial conflicts of interest, both in selecting the members initially and also by the committee itself in closed session, when it meets for the first time. Committee members should be ** willing and able to work collegially with other committee members of differing perspectives to reach consensus on information-based analysis. They should have a demonstrated ability to consider opposing views carefully and respectfully, and be willing and able to act as an individual rather than a representative of any organization or movement. ** sufficiently senior in their fields to warrant broad respect for their intellect, fairness, and stature. ** able to put in the time needed on this project (perhaps 6 meetings, each of 2-3 days, over the course of 18-21 months, plus inter-meeting work such as reading and commenting on report draft materials). During the course of the project, the study committee expects to hear from many other individuals through panel briefings, testimony, white papers and other channels for input. Obviously, committee membership is limited (probably 15 or so individuals) and thus additional perspectives will be sought through briefings, a major convening, and a call for input that will be issued shortly. A good illustration of the kinds of persons sought for this project is provided by the committee assembled in 1994-1996 to study national cryptography policy, another highly controversial area. The committee was chaired by a former Deputy Secretary of State, and included (among others) a former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency, a former Attorney General of the United States, a former Deputy Attorney General, the inventor of public-key cryptography, the director of research and development for the Digital Equipment Corporation, and the creator of Lotus Notes. Persons of comparable stature are sought for this project as well. (This report can be found at .) Please forward nominations (self-nominations acceptable) to DMIF-INPUT at NAS.EDU. Submitted nominations should include contact information, biographies (including relevant published works, public statements, and current or former positions of relevance), and indications of relevant expertise and the perspective on the subject that the nominee will bring. The "subject" line of the e-mail should say "committee nomination." While nominations may be submitted at any time, nominations received after November 22, 2004, or without the information described above, may not be fully considered. More information about the project can be found at http://www.cstb.org/project_infofusion.html. ___________________________________________ Herb Lin, Senior Scientist Computer Science and Telecommunications Board The National Academies (202) 334-3191 voice || (202) 334-2318 fax || hlin at nas.edu www.cstb.org || Where the nation turns for independent and informed assessments of computing, communications, and public policy ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen at leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From dave at farber.net Mon Nov 1 08:31:43 2004 From: dave at farber.net (David Farber) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 11:31:43 -0500 Subject: [IP] Call for Nominations - NRC project on Information Fusion and Message-ID: Data Mining X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619) Reply-To: dave at farber.net Begin forwarded message: From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Mon Nov 1 09:17:40 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 12:17:40 -0500 Subject: The "plagues" are Mosaic asymmetric attacks, not biological Message-ID: Variola wrote... >Again, the Mosaic approach of repeated asymmetric attacks on the Pharoah >is what Al Q >is up to. Eventually the Pharoah/US gets fed up and says fuck it. >Maybe not this election, but eventually, and Al has time. GW has only >4 more years, at best, and Rummy & Cheney are scheduled for a box in the >ground pretty >soon. Wolfy has more time, but after a few more kilocorpses will lose >power with >Joe Sixpack and Joe's post-Bush "leader". I think that's pretty on the money. Terrorism doesn't actually need to affect any single Head Bandit, but after a regime change or two and a pullout occurs the new Bandit can say "We meant to do that anyway." The French and Algeria is a great example. The Mosaic analogy was a good one, too, and not even original: See John Adams' "The Death of Leon Klinghoffer" and you'll know why it took so much heat....having Palestinians singing phrases from Exodus and Psalms was just a little too much for the music-funding establishment. It says a lot, however, that the guy still gets commissions. -TD "Oh Kent! I'd be lying if I said my men didn't commit any crimes!" -Homer Simpson "Touche." -Kent Brockman >From: "Major Variola (ret)" >To: "cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net" >Subject: The "plagues" are Mosaic asymmetric attacks, not biological >Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 21:11:55 -0800 > >At 05:21 PM 10/31/04 -0800, John Young wrote: > >To state the obvious to Major Variola, CDC will have first > >indication of a devastating US attack, reported fragmentarily > >under its links to hospitals, clinics and physicians, against > >which the might military and law enforcement have no defenses. > >You thought I meant bio plagues?! Jeezus John, is your metaphorizer >broken? Any >bio hazard is accidental, or Detrick, not Osama. A *succession of >attacks against the Empire* is what I mean, alluding to the Jews >attacking >the Pharaoh, until he let them alone. Pharoah=US, Moses=UBL, >Jews=Moslems. >Get your head around that one. > >News: >The infectious biological "attack" will be an accident of the modularity > >and recombination of influenza on some chinese duck/pig/human >farm. It will not be intentional but it will kill a lot before the >vaccine >can be produced, which takes ca. 6 mos.. See 1918 pandemic, >and add jet airplanes. A recent _Science_ article described >a model of this. You are one or two days away from that duck/pig/human >incubator nowadays, no matter where you live. That will happen, >but it won't be intentional. The geopoli implications will be fun, but >UBL is not involved there. > >Observation: >A non-infectious biological attack (eg anthrax which isn't >infectious) is cheap, but not Al Q's preferred MO. They go >for the special effects type attacks, simultaneous so you >know its them. (Otherwise it could be a suicical egyptian, >a rudder jerked too hard, a screw-jack improperly lubricated, >the NTSC is very creative.) > >Of course the Ft Detrick folks enjoy sending >the occasional sporulated letter to senators, but hey, their funding was > >running out, you do what you gotta do. > >Implementation: >A chem attack is pretty nifty, and in many ways easier than >fission or RDDs. Since there are so many chems moving >around, and rad sources are so easy to detect, by virtue of the >energy of the emissions, and controlled/surveilled materials. > >A tanker into a school is double the fun, >its been years since Columbine, and the underbelly is itching >for a scratch. (Again, you need to pull off 2 the same day.) >I wonder if there is a school that enrolls only >first born sons, that would be interesting to read about in your mosaic >er netscape er IE browser, eh? Since your allusion-detector is broken, > >"mosaic", get it? > >History: >"Let my people go" and taking a beating only works if you have >wannabe-moral brits who want to divest anyway and your name is >Ghandi. Otherwise the biblical plagues, aka asymmetric attack, approach >is >guaranteed to work in the limit. All you need is enough popular >support. >Its there. > >It only took 200 dead marines and one bomb >to evict us from Lebanon, maybe 50K corpses for S. Nam, don't know about > >N Korea, but do the math. .mil are disposable, but they have families >that >whine and vote. And the press is not *entirely* 0wn3d by the .gov, yet. > >Conclusion: >Again, the Mosaic approach of repeated asymmetric attacks on the Pharoah >is what Al Q >is up to. Eventually the Pharoah/US gets fed up and says fuck it. >Maybe not this election, but eventually, and Al has time. GW has only >4 more years, at best, and Rummy & Cheney are scheduled for a box in the >ground pretty >soon. Wolfy has more time, but after a few more kilocorpses will lose >power with >Joe Sixpack and Joe's post-Bush "leader". > >Operation Just Cause >Just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I have to ignore >Egyptian/Hebrew history. >Just because I live here doesn't mean I don't think the US deserves the >treatment >that any Empire deserves. Just because I'm an American doesn't mean I >can't use >sophisticated allusions. Just because I say Mosaic Plagues doesn't mean >I'm >talking about frogs & locusts. Dig? _________________________________________________________________ Get ready for school! Find articles, homework help and more in the Back to School Guide! http://special.msn.com/network/04backtoschool.armx From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 1 09:04:16 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 13:04:16 -0400 Subject: Ten reasons I'm not voting for you, Mr. George W. Bush. Message-ID: OpinionJournal - CAMPAIGN 2004 No More Years Ten reasons I'm not voting for you, Mr. George W. Bush. BY JIM TREACHER Monday, November 1, 2004 12:01 a.m. 10. Do you really think it's a good idea to be Hitler, George? Hitler killed millions of people and his approval ratings are in the toilet. Why can't you be somebody people like? Regis, maybe, or the Prophet Mohammed. Anybody but Hitler! Being Hitler = BAD IDEA. 9. Two words: You. Are. Dumb. 8. When Karl Rove used the remote-control device implanted in your upper back to force you to murder Iraqi babies and American soldiers for oil and/or no reason because Saddam was mean to your dad, plus what about the WMDs you lost after you lied about them even being there in the first place, and then Rove tried to make everybody think your Thanksgiving turkey wasn't plastic by planting fake documents about your military service and forcing Dan Rather to say "Sorry, I guess" on national TV, did you really think we wouldn't figure it out? 7. People might make fun of me. Maybe you're used to it by now, but I'm not. 6. I mean, black hoods? Fa-shion dis-a-a-a-ster. Wasn't Abu Ghraib dreary enough already? (More like Abu Drab!) I would have started a riot--a laugh riot. While pointing at you! 5. How dare you taunt a dying Christopher Reeve with a big brown bottle of stem cells? The man was on his deathbed, you sick monster. Why did you have to hold the spoon right in front of his lips? "C'mon, Chrissy, it's right here. You can do it, bwah! Just another coupla inches. Oooh, yer close. Close!" Shame on you, Dubya. 4. I can't really think of anything for item No. 4, and for that I blame you. (Also the Jews.) 3. Where's Osama? C'mon, Shrub, we all know you've got him in some secret Ashcroft prison and he's running around loose in the world, plus also besides which everybody just saw him live on tape giving the dramatic reading of "Fahrenheit 9/11" that the Halliburton PR department wrote for him to swing the election your way. Well 2. The Internet. 1. I can no longer afford the premiums on my falling-sky insurance. Adios, chimp! Mr. Treacher writes at JimTreacher.com. Editor's note: This is a satire of the Angry Left. Please do not take it seriously. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 1 09:11:47 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 13:11:47 -0400 Subject: Trio try for better mobile security Message-ID: vnunet.com Trio try for better mobile security The Trusted Mobile Platform from Intel, IBM and NTT DoCoMo aims to make mobiles a better bet for secure networking Daniel Robinson, IT Week 01 Nov 2004 Intel, IBM and mobile communications company NTT DoCoMo last week announced a set of security specifications for mobile client devices. They said the aim is to create a secure architecture for future wireless data services. The Trusted Mobile Platform specification, available via the link below, defines a set of hardware and software components plus communication protocols that can be used to build devices with various levels of security. It is intended to be an open standard, according to NTT DoCoMo chief executive Takanori Utano. The specification defines three classes of trusted mobile device (TMD), ranging from handsets with no hardware security features to those that include a trusted platform module (TPM) to handle cryptography functions and hardware-enforced separation between trusted and untrusted applications and their data. It also defines a set of protocols that allow a TMD to communicate with other platforms more securely The partnership brings together Intel's expertise in silicon and wireless devices, IBM's experience of business security and NTT DoCoMo's knowledge of security in wireless networks, the companies said. "This collaboration enhances handheld architectures to provide the trusted capabilities vital for widespread adoption of mobile commerce and enterprise usage," said Intel vice-president Sean Maloney. Chip designer ARM already includes technology called TrustZone in its latest processor cores to provide separation between secure and non-secure code. Although Intel uses ARM technology in its XScale mobile chips, the company has not disclosed whether the Trusted Mobile Platform supports technologies such as TrustZone. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 1 10:01:37 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 14:01:37 -0400 Subject: Activists fear e-voting security glitches Message-ID: TechTarget Activists fear e-voting security glitches By Bill Brenner, News Writer 01 Nov 2004 | SearchSecurity.com It's a recurring nightmare for many political activists and IT experts: electronic voting machines around the country suffer security breaches on Election Day, affecting the outcome of a bitterly-contested White House race and other key battles. "I'm extremely concerned, especially in states like Florida," said Reed Hundt, a Democrat who chaired the Federal Communications Commission during the Clinton Administration. "Republican governors control most of the battleground states and they haven't done a thing to make these systems transparent and trustworthy. Democrats will have to turn out in record numbers to be counted. I worry about a vote-counting catastrophe." State and federal efforts to replace paper and punch-card voting systems with electronic machines gained steam after Florida's 2000 election debacle. In October 2002 Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, mandating that every voting district modernize its election systems by 2006 and allocating $3.9 billion for that purpose. Many states invested the money in electronic voting machines. A study by Washington D.C.-based Election Data Services estimates more than 48 million registered voters will cast ballots on electronic equipment Nov. 2, compared to 53 million who will use optical scan systems and 22 million who will still use punch cards. About the same number of voters will use lever machines, while only about a million will use paper ballots, the study estimated. But concerns abound in many states. There are fears people will be able to use security holes to vote multiple times, that a power failure could wipe out votes and that no paper trail will exist for backup. Interviews with political activists and security experts and an extensive review of media coverage over the last several months suggests most of the concern is among Democrats, Green Party members and civil liberty groups. Democrats worry e-voting security glitches could tip an extremely close election in President George W. Bush's favor. If Republicans fear problems could tip the election to Sen. John F. Kerry, they're not talking about it. President Bush has expressed faith in the nation's e-voting equipment, and Republican governors like Jeb Bush in Florida believe the machines will work fine on Election Day. Maryland reflects national debate Recent events in Maryland reflect what has happened across the country. A group called TrueVoteMD tried unsuccessfully to stop e-voting and is now fighting in court to send designated poll watchers to voting stations. The state has adopted an independent firm's recommendations to boost security and Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich believes the machines are ready. Critics remain skeptical. Pam Woodside, chief information officer for Maryland's independent State Board of Elections, said the state began experimenting with e-voting in Baltimore City in 1998 using Sequoia Voting System machines. After the 2000 election problems, then-Gov. Parris Glendenning commissioned a panel of experts to review the best voting technology for the state. Texas-based Diebold Election Systems was eventually chosen to provide the machines. Shortly after the contract was signed, Woodside said the trouble began. First came a report co-authored by Avi Rubin, computer science professor and technical director of Johns Hopkins University's Information Security Institute. The report cited several security problems with e-voting machines that could allow voters to cast unlimited votes without being detected and without insider privileges. Other problems mentioned included incorrect use of cryptography and poor software development. Woodside said many of the report's conclusions were off base. "It assumed source code was on the Internet. That was incorrect. It assumed you could attach a keyboard to the unit. That's not true. It assumed you could vote multiple times and that's not true either," she said. 'The most secure' system around After the media pounced on the report, Ehrlich ordered a risk assessment. The state hired Columbia, Md.-based RABA Technologies to do the work, and its final report said the machines failed to meet 66 of its 328 standards. Woodside said the state immediately addressed the problems and believes the machines are now ironclad. "One of the items we addressed right away was to get the vendor to change the software so we could create unique pins for voting units in each county," she said. "We now use security keys that are dynamically allocated. We also demanded more secure encryption from the vendor." The RABA report also recommended the state use locks and tamper tape to protect areas housing the server and memory card that will accumulate and store the votes. "We've done that, put antivirus software on servers, activated logs and applied applicable Microsoft patches," Woodside said. "We now have the most secure e-voting system around." Lingering worries Linda Schade, a member of TrueVoteMD and the Green Party, begs to differ. While the group failed to block e-voting in Maryland, it is now fighting in court for the right to send monitors into polling precincts around the state. "The use of paperless electronic voting in Maryland has been marred by serious problems," Schade said. "It is clear these machines need to be watched closely. We now know that in the last election, people received incomplete ballots missing candidates, machines failed to boot, technicians without identification worked on machines making undocumented alterations. The State Board of Elections told the media and the public that the machines worked flawlessly, but since then local boards of elections have reported widespread problems." Rubin also remains fearful security glitches could skew ballot counts and disenfranchise voters. After spending the day as an election judge in Baltimore County during the primary, he gained a new appreciation for poll workers, saying they worked diligently all day to ensure machines worked properly and everyone's vote was counted. But last week he said most states that will use e-voting Nov. 2 without a paper trail are "in over their heads." "I am more worried about the fact that the voting machines have the potential to be rigged than I am that they were actually rigged," said Rubin. "There's no way to know, and that's not healthy. The worst thing is that there could be a security breach, and we'd have no way of knowing it." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From measl at mfn.org Mon Nov 1 12:25:57 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 14:25:57 -0600 (CST) Subject: "Ask yourselves why we didn't attack Sweden" In-Reply-To: References: <41846567.85E4BCF4@cdc.gov> <41869954.4040507@students.bbk.ac.uk> Message-ID: <20041101142432.N37875@ubzr.zsa.bet> On Mon, 1 Nov 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: > At 8:15 PM +0000 11/1/04, ken wrote: > >> HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 > >> > > > >[Heap of transparent murderous lies snipped] > > > If you ever take a logic class, :-), that's an informal fallacy called an > ad hominem. That would be like me disregarding anything you say because > your email address was . Which is almost as bad as making arguments, and then refusing to defend them in the face of opposition (geodesic cowardice). > ;-) > > Cheers, > RAH -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 1 10:37:28 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 14:37:28 -0400 Subject: Psst. President Bush Is Hard at Work Expanding Government Secrecy Message-ID: The New York Times November 1, 2004 EDITORIAL OBSERVER Psst. President Bush Is Hard at Work Expanding Government Secrecy By DOROTHY SAMUELS t is only inevitable, I suppose, that some big issues never make it onto the agenda of a presidential campaign, and other lesser issues, or total nonissues, somehow emerge instead. Electoral politics, as Americans are regularly being reminded these final hard-fought days before the election, is a brutal, messy business, not an antiseptic political science exercise. That said, I hereby confess to feeling disappointed over Senator John Kerry's failure to home in hard on one of the more worrisome domestic policy developments of the past four years - namely the Bush administration's drastic expansion of needless government secrecy. President Bush's antipathy to open government continues to garner only a trivial level of attention compared with the pressing matters that seem to be engaging the country at the moment, including, in no particular order, the Red Sox, Iraq, terrorism, taxes and the mysterious iPod-size bulge visible under the back of Mr. Bush's suit jacket at the first debate. But the implications for a second term are ominous. Beyond undermining the constitutional system of checks and balances, undue secrecy is a proven formula for faulty White House decision-making and debilitating scandal. If former President Richard Nixon, the nation's last chief executive with a chronic imperial disdain for what Justice Louis Brandeis famously called the disinfecting power of sunlight, were alive today, I like to think he'd be advising Mr. Bush to choose another role model. As detailed in a telling new Congressional report, Mr. Bush's secrecy obsession - by now a widely recognized hallmark of his presidency - is truly out of hand. The 90-page report, matter-of-factly titled "Secrecy in the Bush Administration," was released with little fanfare in September by Representative Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform, and one of the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration's steady descent into greater and greater secrecy. The objective was to catalog the myriad ways that President Bush and his appointees have undermined existing laws intended to advance public access to information, while taking an expansive view of laws that authorize the government to operate in secrecy, or to withhold certain information. Some of the instances the report cites are better known than others. Among the more notorious, of course, are the administration's ongoing refusal to disclose contacts between Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force and energy company executives, or to explain the involvement of Mr. Cheney's office in the awarding of huge sole-source contracts to Halliburton for Iraq reconstruction; the post-9/11 rush to embrace shameful, unconstitutional practices like secret detentions and trials; and the resistance and delay in turning over key documents sought by the Sept. 11 commission. The report lists many other troubling examples as well. Mr. Bush and his appointees have routinely impeded Congress's constitutionally prescribed oversight role by denying reasonable requests from senior members of Congressional committees for basic information. They forced a court fight over access to the Commerce Department's corrected census counts, for instance, withheld material relating to the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and stonewalled attempts to collect information on meetings and phone conversations between Karl Rove, the presidential adviser, and executives of firms in which he owned stock. The administration has also taken to treating as top secret documents previously available under the Freedom of Information Act - going so far as to reverse the landmark act's presumption in favor of disclosure and to encourage agencies to withhold a broad, hazily defined universe of "sensitive but unclassified" information. Under a phony banner of national security, Mr. Bush has reversed reasonable steps by the Clinton administration to narrow the government's capacity to classify documents. Aside from being extremely expensive, the predictably steep recent increase in decisions to classify information runs starkly counter to recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission geared to strengthening oversight of the intelligence agencies. Not one for self-criticism - or any kind of criticism, for that matter - President Bush says he's content to leave it to historians to assess his presidential legacy. What he fails to mention is that he has seriously impeded that historical review by issuing a 2001 executive order repealing the presumption of public access to presidential papers embedded in the 1978 Presidential Records Act. On a superficial level, the hush-hush treatment of this issue on the fall campaign trail might seem perversely fitting. But Mr. Bush's unilateral rollback of laws and practices designed to promote government accountability surely rates further scrutiny by voters. We've learned over the last four years that what we don't know can hurt us. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 1 11:21:56 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 15:21:56 -0400 Subject: "Ask yourselves why we didn't attack Sweden" In-Reply-To: <41869954.4040507@students.bbk.ac.uk> References: <41846567.85E4BCF4@cdc.gov> <41869954.4040507@students.bbk.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 8:15 PM +0000 11/1/04, ken wrote: >> HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 >> > >[Heap of transparent murderous lies snipped] If you ever take a logic class, :-), that's an informal fallacy called an ad hominem. That would be like me disregarding anything you say because your email address was . ;-) Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 1 11:36:03 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 15:36:03 -0400 Subject: Geodesic neoconservative empire In-Reply-To: <41869CBF.9010403@students.bbk.ac.uk> References: <41825F75.31931.BCDDEC8@localhost> <20041029212318.M41612@ubzr.zsa.bet> <6.0.3.0.0.20041030132232.04096908@pop.idiom.com> <41869CBF.9010403@students.bbk.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 8:29 PM +0000 11/1/04, ken wrote: >Read up on Lord Lugard. Oh. I get it. September came two months later this year across the pond... Cheers, RAH Now, *that*, I say, *that*, son, is an ad hominem... -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 1 08:41:37 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 17:41:37 +0100 Subject: [IP] Call for Nominations - NRC project on Information Fusion and Data Mining (fwd from dave@farber.net) Message-ID: <20041101164137.GI1457@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from David Farber ----- From bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk Mon Nov 1 12:15:16 2004 From: bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk (ken) Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 20:15:16 +0000 Subject: "Ask yourselves why we didn't attack Sweden" In-Reply-To: References: <41846567.85E4BCF4@cdc.gov> Message-ID: <41869954.4040507@students.bbk.ac.uk> R.A. Hettinga wrote: > At 9:09 PM -0700 10/30/04, Major Variola (ret) wrote: > >>I'm surprised >>the "Ask yourselves why we didn't attack Sweden" comment >>isn't discussed more > > > > > > > HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 > [Heap of transparent murderous lies snipped] O dear, I seem to have snipped all of it. There was no content there at all..... From bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk Mon Nov 1 12:29:51 2004 From: bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk (ken) Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 20:29:51 +0000 Subject: Geodesic neoconservative empire In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.0.20041030132232.04096908@pop.idiom.com> References: <41825F75.31931.BCDDEC8@localhost> <20041029212318.M41612@ubzr.zsa.bet> <6.0.3.0.0.20041030132232.04096908@pop.idiom.com> Message-ID: <41869CBF.9010403@students.bbk.ac.uk> Bill Stewart wrote: > >> On Fri, 29 Oct 2004, James A. Donald wrote: >> > This presupposes the US intends to rule Afghanistan and Iraq, >> > which is manifestly false. > > > Since this chain started by ragging on RAH about it being a > _geodesic_ neo-{Khan, con-men} empire, you're both correct - > there isn't a conflict between ruling them by proxy > and not ruling them directly Most all empires that lasted more than a few decades used indirect rule (famous big exception China - though not always and they had to endure generations of collapse between each advance) Rome & Britain just best known. Read up on Lord Lugard. From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 05:16:41 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 08:16:41 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: The Wall Street Journal November 2, 2004 COMMENTARY This Memorable Day By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON November 2, 2004; Page A22 In singular moments in our history, the security of the United States hinged on a single presidential election. Imagine George McClellan recognizing an undefeated Confederacy in March 1865. Consider an eight-year Jimmy Carter tenure. Or contemplate Walter Mondale taking over from a defeated President Reagan to implement unilaterally a nuclear freeze, Mike Dukakis asking Saddam to leave Kuwait, or Al Gore mobilizing America to invade Afghanistan. We are now faced with the same critical choice. Today's vote determines how the United States finishes the present war against terrorists, and, indeed, whether we continue to defeat Islamic fascism and those Middle East autocracies that fuel it. * * * John Kerry sees our struggle as an unending law enforcement problem, akin to gambling and prostitution. Thus the terrorist attacks of the 1990s were not deadly precursors to 9/11, but belong to a now nostalgic era of "nuisance." In contrast, George W. Bush envisioned September 11 as real war -- a global struggle against Dark-Age extremism, striving for a modern nuclear caliphate that could blackmail the industrialized world and destroy Western liberal values. So Mr. Bush took terrorist killers at their word, convinced that such "evildoers," like a Hitler or Stalin, had no legitimate complaint against America. Rather, they murder out of a deep frustration that Western-inspired freedom is on the march, threatening both Islamic fascism and those repressive regimes that hand-in-glove with them have deflected their own failures onto the United States. John Kerry promises "help is on the way" to remove President Bush, who has, according to Mr. Kerry, lied when he is exposed as incompetent. Such strident condemnation ignores the stunning victory over the Taliban, the first voting in Afghanistan in 5,000 years, the removal of Saddam Hussein with scheduled elections for next January, positive changes in Libya, Pakistan and the Gulf States, and the absence of another 9/11-like attack here at home. Moqtada al-Sadr and Osama bin Laden now whine about American retaliation and send out peace feelers. But their apprehension arises not because of Sen. Kerry's rhetoric or his promises of U.N. collectivism. Rather, the specter of four more years of a resolute George W. Bush equates to their continued defeat. Their trepidation was shared by the 1980 hostage takers in Tehran, who relented in terror of an inaugurated Ronald Reagan warning them of the impending end to Carteresque appeasement. Most of Sen. Kerry's allegations about this war ring false or insincere because he shifts in tune to mercurial polls. The senator's yes/no/maybe public statements and votes reflect the perceived daily pulse of the battlefield -- and his lack of either a strategic understanding of the war or faith in the skill and resoluteness of the U.S. military. He insists that there were no al Qaeda ties to Baathists, but we see them in postbellum Iraq, knew of them during the first World Trade Center bombing, and once accepted President Clinton's claim for them during his 1998 retaliation against the Sudan. WMD are likewise derided as a chimera. But President Clinton, Sen. Kerry, and Sen. John Edwards are all on record frantically warning about Saddam's bio-chem arsenal -- with others citing intelligence confirmation from Vladimir Putin to Hosni Mubarak. During the three-week war, American troops in the field did not don bothersome chemical suits because of President Bush's naoveti or duplicity. In Sen. Kerry's world, brave folk such as Iraq's Prime Minister Allawi, the Poles, and the Australians are belittled as hollow and bought allies, while Germany and France, that profited lucratively with Saddam, will be invited to join "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time," now dubbed analogous to the Bay of Pigs. The explanation for Saddam's removal, in Teresa Heinz Kerry's words, is "blood for oil," a mantra echoed by "Fahrenheit 9/11," MoveOn.org, and bin Laden's latest infomercial. But after the invasion, petroleum prices soared. Iraq's national treasure is for the first time transparent and autonomous. France, Russia and the U.N. can no longer appropriate it. President Bush, once libeled as the villainous Texas oil schemer, is now reinvented on the campaign trail as Sen. Kerry's clueless naof, bullied by a sinister OPEC. True, much of the Kerry negativism derives from opportunism. Yet there is also a logic that explains the flip-flopping, rooted in deep-seeded doubts about both the utility and morality of using American military power. Thus Sen. Kerry voted against many of our present weapons systems. That obstructionism explains why in 1988 he looked back at the Reagan strategic build-up as one of "moral darkness." Mr. Kerry, as a soldier and a senator, conducted freelance negotiations with both the communist North Vietnamese and Sandinistas. His opposition to the 1991 Gulf War might have ensured a Saddam Hussein sitting on 30% of the world's oil, replete with nukes, and lording over what was left of Kuwait, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. His recent embrace of a "global test" as the proper requisite of American military action was not novel, but reflected his 1994 remarks that American efforts to stop Serbian fascism should be predicated only on U.N. approval -- although Sen. Kerry later supported Bill Clinton when he subsequently bombed successfully without either the sanction of the U.S. Senate or the U.N. Security Council. And when President Clinton reaffirmed America as the "indispensable nation," Sen. Kerry predictably lamented the "arrogant, obnoxious tone." Sen. Kerry insists that President Bush "squandered" global goodwill and that America is now roundly disliked. But who is angry with President Bush -- and why? North Korea to be sure -- their Danegeld of oil and food is gone, their nuclear antics under multiparty scrutiny. Iran is furious as well -- but even more terrified that the U.S. is no longer in an investigative, but rather a warrior, mood. The Arafat kleptocracy and much of the Middle East pine for the good old days of "sensitive" American cops vainly subpoenaing terrorists snug in safe compounds and palaces. If Belgium, France and Germany are purportedly seething at Mr. Bush's troop repositioning, "dead or alive" homilies, and the smashing of Saddam's cashbox, then billions in India, China and Russia see all that as a larger effort to stop a globally despised Islamic fascism. Most Americans applaud the support of Australia and Britain rather than worry over the censure of New Zealand and Canada. Yes, George W. Bush is a divisive wartime figure -- so were Lincoln, Churchill and Roosevelt. But war itself is divisive precisely because to end it one side must lose. In war, it is hard to know when victory is near, since the last campaigns are often the bloodiest. Yet we are seeing the foundations of a new Middle East, with terrorists scattered, jailed and dead. And, yes, victory itself is on the horizon -- but only if on this memorable day we persevere, and allow George W. Bush to finish the job. Mr. Hanson, a military historian, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Tue Nov 2 06:21:23 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 09:21:23 -0500 Subject: Psst. President Bush Is Hard at Work Expanding Government Secrecy Message-ID: "That said, I hereby confess to feeling disappointed over Senator John Kerry's failure to home in hard on one of the more worrisome domestic policy developments of the past four years - namely the Bush administration's drastic expansion of needless government secrecy." Come on! The bar slut has passed out on the pooltable and Bush's fratbrother Mr Kerry hasn't had his go yet... -TD >From: "R.A. Hettinga" >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net, cryptography at metzdowd.com >Subject: Psst. President Bush Is Hard at Work Expanding Government Secrecy >Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 14:37:28 -0400 > > > >The New York Times > >November 1, 2004 >EDITORIAL OBSERVER > >Psst. President Bush Is Hard at Work Expanding Government Secrecy >By DOROTHY SAMUELS > >t is only inevitable, I suppose, that some big issues never make it onto >the agenda of a presidential campaign, and other lesser issues, or total >nonissues, somehow emerge instead. Electoral politics, as Americans are >regularly being reminded these final hard-fought days before the election, >is a brutal, messy business, not an antiseptic political science exercise. > > That said, I hereby confess to feeling disappointed over Senator John >Kerry's failure to home in hard on one of the more worrisome domestic >policy developments of the past four years - namely the Bush >administration's drastic expansion of needless government secrecy. > > President Bush's antipathy to open government continues to garner only a >trivial level of attention compared with the pressing matters that seem to >be engaging the country at the moment, including, in no particular order, >the Red Sox, Iraq, terrorism, taxes and the mysterious iPod-size bulge >visible under the back of Mr. Bush's suit jacket at the first debate. But >the implications for a second term are ominous. > > Beyond undermining the constitutional system of checks and balances, >undue >secrecy is a proven formula for faulty White House decision-making and >debilitating scandal. If former President Richard Nixon, the nation's last >chief executive with a chronic imperial disdain for what Justice Louis >Brandeis famously called the disinfecting power of sunlight, were alive >today, I like to think he'd be advising Mr. Bush to choose another role >model. > > As detailed in a telling new Congressional report, Mr. Bush's secrecy >obsession - by now a widely recognized hallmark of his presidency - is >truly out of hand. > > The 90-page report, matter-of-factly titled "Secrecy in the Bush >Administration," was released with little fanfare in September by >Representative Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the >House Committee on Government Reform, and one of the most outspoken critics >of the Bush administration's steady descent into greater and greater >secrecy. The objective was to catalog the myriad ways that President Bush >and his appointees have undermined existing laws intended to advance public >access to information, while taking an expansive view of laws that >authorize the government to operate in secrecy, or to withhold certain >information. > > Some of the instances the report cites are better known than others. >Among >the more notorious, of course, are the administration's ongoing refusal to >disclose contacts between Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force >and energy company executives, or to explain the involvement of Mr. >Cheney's office in the awarding of huge sole-source contracts to >Halliburton for Iraq reconstruction; the post-9/11 rush to embrace >shameful, unconstitutional practices like secret detentions and trials; and >the resistance and delay in turning over key documents sought by the Sept. >11 commission. > > The report lists many other troubling examples as well. Mr. Bush and his >appointees have routinely impeded Congress's constitutionally prescribed >oversight role by denying reasonable requests from senior members of >Congressional committees for basic information. They forced a court fight >over access to the Commerce Department's corrected census counts, for >instance, withheld material relating to the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and >stonewalled attempts to collect information on meetings and phone >conversations between Karl Rove, the presidential adviser, and executives >of firms in which he owned stock. The administration has also taken to >treating as top secret documents previously available under the Freedom of >Information Act - going so far as to reverse the landmark act's presumption >in favor of disclosure and to encourage agencies to withhold a broad, >hazily defined universe of "sensitive but unclassified" information. > > Under a phony banner of national security, Mr. Bush has reversed >reasonable steps by the Clinton administration to narrow the government's >capacity to classify documents. Aside from being extremely expensive, the >predictably steep recent increase in decisions to classify information runs >starkly counter to recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission geared to >strengthening oversight of the intelligence agencies. > > Not one for self-criticism - or any kind of criticism, for that matter - >President Bush says he's content to leave it to historians to assess his >presidential legacy. What he fails to mention is that he has seriously >impeded that historical review by issuing a 2001 executive order repealing >the presumption of public access to presidential papers embedded in the >1978 Presidential Records Act. > >On a superficial level, the hush-hush treatment of this issue on the fall >campaign trail might seem perversely fitting. But Mr. Bush's unilateral >rollback of laws and practices designed to promote government >accountability surely rates further scrutiny by voters. We've learned over >the last four years that what we don't know can hurt us. > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 07:31:59 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 10:31:59 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 3:32 AM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote: >Eugen Leitl writes: >>On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >>> >>No cypherpunks content. Just local politics. > >And it's not even original, they've mostly just translated it into English, >updated it a bit (e.g. League of Nations -> UN), and changed the Russian names >and references to Middle Eastern ones. Yup. That's Davis' point, actually. Fuck with the West, we kick your ass. BTW, the Greeks at naval battle of Salamis were arguing, violently, the very night before the battle. The Persian deaths numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The Greeks died in the low hundreds. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 07:55:00 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 10:55:00 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 10:31 AM -0500 11/2/04, R.A. Hettinga wrote: >The Persian deaths numbered in the hundreds >of thousands. The Greeks died in the low hundreds. More recently, and closer to Hanson's point in the article, both of Lincoln's elections were very close. But, after Lincoln's second inauguration, Grant took charge of the Union Army and began killing Confederates (and Union soldiers) in a series of horrific battles culminating in the end of the Civil War. Expect more carnage than culture when Bush is elected. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jya at pipeline.com Tue Nov 2 11:58:29 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 11:58:29 -0800 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And an admirable role model for the Simian's memory: An avenging rebel terrorist shot Abe, not Grant, who suicided himself with whiskey and self-pity, after lollygagging in the animal-beshat White House, lost that, took up liquor, became a helpless drunk, friends caretook his inept pickled carcass for a few years then he wrote a vain, distorted book about his carnaging of the rebels, and worst comedownance, got entombed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so it is said, but who knows what military-industrial effigy lies in that grafitti-and-dogshit-smeared pile overlooking beshitten liberal-elitist, nest of rebellious vermin Columbia University, Riverside Church, the National Council of Churches, and best, squalid, infested, periodically ractist white-massacreing Harlem. Still, when you visit Grant's Tomb you see mostly well-dressed African Americans studying the memoria displayed welling tears at the piles of war dead, the freed slaves, the army grunts and officers gauntly posed in muddy filth. A tourist bus roars in, pinky blobs waddle into the high-domed gloom, see no cafe, no gift shop, come out to circle the monument looking for something to buy or eat or video. Nothing there like the rest of the homeland shopfested US. What the fuck they mouth, fart, scratch, heave their globs fore and aft, struggle to re-mount the bus, stare out the dark glass at me in my Swift Boat get-up, jesus-bearded, gut abusting, carrying a Viet Vet begging sign that says Apocalypse Now or Else. From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Tue Nov 2 09:11:27 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 12:11:27 -0500 Subject: Musings on "getting out the vote" Message-ID: And they seem to believe there's going to be a huge difference between Kang and Kodos. So far, the only things Kerry seems to have promised is that he'd be better at doing all the crazy shit Bush has dove into. So when they ask me (at the corner of Wall and Broadway), "Are you a John Kerry Supporter", I reply, "Well, 'supporter' is not the word I would use." And then I 'move on'. -TD >From: "J.A. Terranson" >To: undisclosed-recipients: ; >Subject: Musings on "getting out the vote" >Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 08:42:41 -0600 (CST) > > > >Several weeks ago, a couple of MoveOn droids showed up at my door to "take >a survey". I told them that yes, I was a registered republican, and that >yes, I was voting for Kerry, so fuck off. > >Last week, while I was away, they came back to "check that [my wife] was >still planning to vote for Kerry". > >Today, after two hours in line, after braving the lawyers with the >republican stickers hovering over the line, and challenging voters who >Seem A Little Dark For This Part Of Town, and casting my vote for the guy >I hate the least [Kerry], we were walking to the car and were again >accosted by a couple of *very pushy* MoveOn droids: > > "Sir! Sir! Have you voted?" > > "Yes. Go away." > > "Sir! Wait a minute! Have you been contacted by your MoveOn > representative yet?" (as he tries to physically insert himself between me > and the street) > > "Yes. Too many fucking times: get out of my fucking way!" > >First of all, while I appreciate their willingness to help throw the angry >little midget fuck in the whitehouse out on his ass, they are alienating >people. I *guarantee* the sight of me fighting off the MoveOn people made >a mental impression on the hundred plus people on line. > >Second, I signed up to drive folks to the polls today for a few hours, >*with* MoveOn. I also came very close to saying fuckit - these assholes >need an IMMEDIATE attitude adjustment, or they are going to help turn the >vote *away* from their supposed goal. > > > > >-- >Yours, > >J.A. Terranson >sysadmin at mfn.org >0xBD4A95BF > > "An ill wind is stalking > while evil stars whir > and all the gold apples > go bad to the core" > > S. Plath, Temper of Time _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! hthttp://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 09:56:59 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 12:56:59 -0500 Subject: Nokia, Philips trial NFC for Wireless Ticketing Message-ID: Nokia, Philips trial NFC for Wireless Ticketing Nokia, Royal Philips Electronics together with Rhein-Main Verkehrsverbund (RMV), public transport authority for Frankfurt's greater area, today announced a joint project to trial a Near Field Communication (NFC) ticketing solution that uses mobile phones to access an existing contactless smart card ticketing infrastructure. The trial, which starts early 2005, will enable RMV's current customers to use Nokia 3220 phones equipped by tailored Nokia NFC shell covers to gain access to a local bus network in Hanau, a city near Frankfurt. As a result, travelers can enjoy a convenient and secure solution designed around their needs to buy, store and use tickets with their Nokia 3220 mobile phones. About Near Field Communication (NFC): Evolving from a combination of contactless identification and networking technologies, Near Field Communication (NFC) is a wireless connectivity technology that enables convenient short-range communication between electronic devices. NFC offers the ultimate in convenience for connecting all types of consumer devices and enables rapid and easy communications. It is the perfect solution for controlling data in our increasingly complex and connected world. NFC technology evolved from a combination of contactless identification (RFID) and interconnection technologies. NFC operates in the 13.56 MHz frequency range, over a distance of typically a few centimetres. NFC technology is standardized in ISO 18092, ECMA 340, and ETSI TS 102 190. Near Field Communication is also compatible to the broadly established contactless smart card infrastructure. The ticketing solution will be demonstrated at the CARTES IT & SECURITY trade show in Paris (2-4 November). As the first live NFC-based ticketing application of its kind, the trial will use Nokia 3220 mobile phones with a contactless NFC solution, based on the Nokia NFC shell - the mobile phone's outside cover. The RMV electronic ticketing application will be securely stored on an integrated smart card controller in the phone, and is fully compatible with today's smart card-based ticketing products. Users will simply need to touch their phones against the contactless reader as they get on and off the bus to register their journey. This trial will provide the partners with practical experience of NFC-enabled mobile ticketing on a check-in/check-out basis, paving the way for broad adoption of the technology. The mobile phone offers customers a quick and convenient way to use the public transport network, and RMV is at the forefront of understanding how customers will approach the technology. As an integrated device, the mobile phone can also be used as a resource for transport information, such as timetables, as well as being a terminal for ticketing. For RMV an important feature of the project is that the Nokia NFC shells are compatible with the contactless smart card infrastructure already installed in Hanau. "Nokia is taking a leading role in bringing easy and convenient touch-based interactions to the market. Local ticketing is a great example of how mobility can bring completely new value to consumers and companies that serve them. This ticketing trial will provide us with valuable experience to meet requirements from mobile operators, transport operators and end-users going forward." said Jarkko Sairanen, Vice President, Strategy and Planning, at Nokia Technology Platforms. "With NFC we are delivering on our promise of providing simple and easy-to-use solutions to complex problems," commented Reinhard Kalla, Vice President and General Manager of Identification at Philips Semiconductors. "Together with Nokia and RMV, we have developed the first ticketing application for NFC technology, providing an example of how an intuitive, touch-based solution can simplify the daily lives of users." About the solution Jointly developed by Philips and Sony, NFC enables touch-based interactions in consumer electronics, mobile devices, PCs, smart objects and for payment purposes. Consumers are seeking easier ways to interact with their immediate environment and want to experience easy communication between their electronic devices and gain fast access to services. An intuitive technology, NFC bridges that connectivity gap and allows the connected consumer to interact with their environment. The trial implementation is in line with the Association of German transport operators (Verein Deutscher Verkehrsbetriebe ,VDV), specification that has been developed for a country wide electronic ticketing core application (VDV Kernapplikation). NFC is compatible with Sony's FeliCa(TM) card and the broadly established contactless smart card infrastructure based on ISO 14443 A, which is used in Philips' MIFARE. technology. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 09:57:10 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 12:57:10 -0500 Subject: Germans Use Nokia Phones in Wireless Ticket Trial Message-ID: Reuters Germans Use Nokia Phones in Wireless Ticket Trial Tue Nov 2, 2004 06:04 AM ET HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's top mobile phone maker Nokia said on Tuesday its phones would be used in a project to test wireless public transport fares in Hanau, near Frankfurt in Germany, beginning early next year. The trial, in cooperation with the public transport authority for Frankfurt's greater area and electronics group Philips, begins next year. It will enable owners of Nokia's 3220 handset to equip their phone with a high-tech shell used to pay for and store electronic tickets. The shell, developed by Philips, contains technology that makes the phone compatible with Hanau's existing ticketing system. "Users will simply need to touch their phones against the contactless reader as they get on and off the bus to register their journey," Nokia said in a statement. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jrandom at i2p.net Tue Nov 2 13:35:10 2004 From: jrandom at i2p.net (jrandom) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 13:35:10 -0800 Subject: [i2p] weekly status notes [nov 2] Message-ID: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi y'all, time for the weekly update * Index: 1) Net status 2) Core updates 3) Streaming lib 4) mail.i2p progress 5) BT progress 6) ??? * 1) Net status Pretty much as before - a steady number of peers, eepsites fairly reachable, and irc for hours on end. You can get a peek at the reachability of various eepsites through a few different pages: - http://gott.i2p/sites.html - http://www.baffled.i2p/links.html - http://thetower.i2p/pings.txt * 2) Core updates For those hanging out in the channel (or reading the CVS logs), you've seen a lot of things going on, even though its been a while since the last release. A full list of changes since the 0.4.1.3 release can be found online [1], but there are two major modifications, one good and one bad: The good one is that we've dramatically cut down on the memory churn caused by all sorts of insane temporary object creation. I finally got fed up with watching the GC go mad while debugging the new streaming lib, so after a few days of profiling, tweaking, and tuning, the ugliest parts are cleaned up. The bad one is a bugfix for how some tunnel routed messages are handled - there were some situations where a message was sent directly to the targeted router rather than tunnel routed prior to delivery, which could be exploited by an adversary who can do a little coding. We now properly tunnel route when in doubt. That may sound good, but the 'bad' part is that it means that there's going to be some increased latency due to the additional hops, though these are hops that needed to be used anyway. There are other debugging activities going on in the core as well, so there hasn't been an official release yet - CVS HEAD is 0.4.1.3-8. In the next few days we'll probably have a 0.4.1.4 release, just to get all that stuff cleared up. It won't contain the new streaming lib, of course. [1] http://dev.i2p.net/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/i2p/history.txt?rev=HEAD * 3) Streaming lib Speaking of the streaming lib, there has been a lot of progress here, and the side by side comparison of the old and new libs are looking good. However, there is still work to be done, and as I said last time, we're not going to rush it out the door. That does mean that the roadmap has slipped, likely in the range of 2-3 weeks. More details when they're available. * 4) mail.i2p progress Lots of new stuff this week - working in and out proxies! See www.postman.i2p for more information. * 5) BT progress There has been a flurry of activity regarding porting a BitTorrent client as of late, as well as updating some tracker settings. Perhaps we can get some updates from those involved during the meeting. * 6) ??? Thats it for me. Sorry for the delay, I forgot about that whole daylight savings thingamabob. Anyway, see y'all in a few. =jr -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.1 iQA/AwUBQYf9PBpxS9rYd+OGEQIoGQCgvDKydGRT42tO9bwWutAwnoolpj0AoNyX Z1ThyrjEZjAttC/wChPN43aD =SJDa -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ i2p mailing list i2p at i2p.net http://i2p.dnsalias.net/mailman/listinfo/i2p ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From eugen at leitl.org Tue Nov 2 05:27:38 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:27:38 +0100 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20041102132738.GM1457@leitl.org> On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: > No cypherpunks content. Just local politics. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 12:14:43 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 15:14:43 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 11:58 AM -0800 11/2/04, John Young wrote: >Grant, who >suicided himself with whiskey and self-pity, Actually, he "suicided" himself with cigars, having died of throat cancer... ;-) Seriously, any future crypto-anarchy / anarcho-capitalist society is probably not going to succeed unless it can project *more* force than we can project currently with force monopoly -- not less. That *doesn't* mean centralized, but it certainly means *more*. Peace Kills. Violence will always be conserved. More is more. :-). Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 13:23:09 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 16:23:09 -0500 Subject: IEEE Signs VoteHere's Jim Adler for Book on Electronic Voting Message-ID: Yahoo! Finance Press Release Source: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.; VoteHere, Inc. IEEE Signs VoteHere's Jim Adler for Book on Electronic Voting Tuesday November 2, 1:00 pm ET PISCATAWAY, N.J. and BELLEVUE, Wash., Nov. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE), under its Standards Press program, has engaged with VoteHere, Inc. Founder and CEO, Jim Adler, to write a book on electronic voting security and voter confidence. Tentatively titled: "Where's My Vote? A Framework for Securing the Electronic Ballot and Gaining Voter Confidence," the book will explain how technology can enhance electronic voting and prove that votes are counted properly. "Where's My Vote" will discuss the issues and analyze the technology behind electronic voting, verification, and audit. Electronic voting technology has ignited a national debate surrounding the security of our elections. This book will establish a framework for secure election systems, now and in the future. "A book on voting security is an important contribution to the current debate," said Susan Tatiner, Associate Managing Director for Technical Program Development in the IEEE Standards Association. "Mr. Adler is a recognized expert and pioneer in electronic voting technology." Upon their agreement Mr. Adler commented, "I believe these issues are very timely and my hope is that the security solutions discussed in this book can help guide election reform, so that election leaders and voters might better understand the fundamental science of elections and the proper role of technology in providing transparent and auditable elections." What has been missing in the electronic voting and ballot verification debate is a scientific framework to break through the issues regarding the current election system. "Where's My Vote" provides this framework in the context of providing a unified theory of elections for verification and confidence. Jim Adler is Founder and CEO of VoteHere, the leading worldwide provider of electronic voting security technology. Mr. Adler is widely regarded as an authority on the subjects of cryptography, Internet security and e-voting. Mr. Adler co-chairs the IEEE voter-verifiable standards group and served on California's groundbreaking 1999 Internet Voting Task Force. He has testified before U.S. Congress, the European Parliament, and state legislatures on the subject of e-voting security. About IEEE The IEEE has more than 360,000 members in approximately 175 countries. Through its members, the organization is a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace, computers and telecommunications to biomedicine, electric power and consumer electronics. The IEEE produces nearly 30 percent of the world's literature in the electrical and electronics engineering, computing and control technology fields, and has over 870 active standards and 400+ in development. This nonprofit organization also sponsors or cosponsors more than 300 technical conferences each year. Additional information about the IEEE can be found at http://www.ieee.org/. About VoteHere VoteHere, Inc. is an industry leader in secure, patented voter verification and election audit technology. VoteHere technology has been used in over 90 elections in the U.S. and Europe, for over 50 worldwide clients and partners, reaching nearly 13 million voters. For more information about VoteHere, visit the company's website at http://www.votehere.com. Source: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.; VoteHere, Inc. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From mv at cdc.gov Tue Nov 2 22:04:24 2004 From: mv at cdc.gov (Major Variola (ret)) Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 22:04:24 -0800 Subject: Musings on "getting out the vote" Message-ID: <418874E8.C98523F9@cdc.gov> At 12:11 PM 11/2/04 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: >And they seem to believe there's going to be a huge difference between Kang >and Kodos. If you vote for Kang, the terrorists have won! Besides, without paper (ie physical) evidence, how're you gonna prove that Kang won? At least I live in a blue state. The reds, you've earned what you've earned. Those FONY baseball caps were getting passe, anyway. From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 19:37:50 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 22:37:50 -0500 Subject: Florida 2.0 Message-ID: At the moment, the (no paper backup) touch-screen machines in Florida aren't matching their manual voter counts. In the meantime Ohio has the highest punch-card voting machine count in the country. Are we having fun yet? Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From eugen at leitl.org Tue Nov 2 13:38:44 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 22:38:44 +0100 Subject: [i2p] weekly status notes [nov 2] (fwd from jrandom@i2p.net) Message-ID: <20041102213844.GC1457@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from jrandom ----- From emc at artifact.psychedelic.net Tue Nov 2 22:54:22 2004 From: emc at artifact.psychedelic.net (Eric Cordian) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 22:54:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: So Who Won? Message-ID: <200411030654.iA36sMv7023030@artifact.psychedelic.net> So who won the US election? The turd sandwich, or the giant douche? -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law" From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Tue Nov 2 02:30:36 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 23:30:36 +1300 Subject: "Scan design called portal for hackers" In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20041028232133.00867a30@pop.west.cox.net> Message-ID: David Honig writes: >EETimes 25 Oct 04 has an article about how the testing structures on ICs >makes them vulnerable to attacks. A link (http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=51200146) would have been useful... >The basic idea is that to test a chip, you need to see inside it; this can >also reveal crypto details (e.g., keys) which compromise the chip. The JTAG interface is your (that is, the reverse engineer's) friend. This is why some security devices let you disconnect it using a security-fuse type mechanism before you ship your product. Of course that only works if (a) the device allows it, (b) you remember to activate it, and (c) your attacker isn't sufficiently motivated/funded to use something like microprobing or a FIB workstation to bypass the disconnect. Peter. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com From chuckw at quantumlinux.com Tue Nov 2 23:54:48 2004 From: chuckw at quantumlinux.com (Chuck Wolber) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 23:54:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: So Who Won? In-Reply-To: <200411030654.iA36sMv7023030@artifact.psychedelic.net> References: <200411030654.iA36sMv7023030@artifact.psychedelic.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Nov 2004, Eric Cordian wrote: > So who won the US election? The turd sandwich, or the giant douche? Which witch is which... Ohio is still in play, all the rest are pretty much decided. Ohio has 120,000-ish provisional ballots and about 300,000 regular votes yet to be counted. The spread is about 120,000 in favor of Bush. -Chuck -- http://www.quantumlinux.com Quantum Linux Laboratories, LLC. ACCELERATING Business with Open Technology "The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." - FDR From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 20:59:50 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 23:59:50 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 5:21 PM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote: >another super-power in the >mid 1940s about winning an unwinnable war because God/righteousness/whatever >was on their side Relativism does not a fact make, Peter. Germany 1944 does not equal USA 2004, no matter how hard you twist the kaleidoscope. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 21:04:17 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 00:04:17 -0500 Subject: Swiss Banks Can Still Say " " [but not really...] Message-ID: The Wall Street Journal November 3, 2004 HEARD ON THE STREET DOW JONES Swiss Banks Can Still Say " " Confidentiality Remains Intact, But That Might Derail Mergers With Firms Outside the Country By EDWARD TAYLOR Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL November 3, 2004 FRANKFURT -- The famed Swiss bank account is still open for discreet deposits, and that might become a problem for some Swiss banks. Despite concerns within the European Union that banking secrecy encourages tax evasion, Switzerland retained its right to client confidentiality by signing agreements with the EU last week. That move could dim the prospects for Swiss banks to participate in mergers with financial firms outside the country. While the accords secure the small Alpine country's status as a banking haven -- Swiss banks manage about 3.2 trillion Swiss francs, or about $2.7 trillion, in assets -- they also could handicap the likes of Credit Suisse Group, Julius Baer Holding Ltd. and Vontobel Group if those companies decide to participate in pan-European banking consolidation. The EU was pushing hard for the Swiss to abolish Switzerland's extreme version of confidentiality during the bilateral accords -- a raft of proposals aimed at easing the movement of goods, services and people between the EU and Switzerland. In the end, a compromise was reached. The Swiss agreed to impose a withholding tax on interest payments made to EU citizens with deposits in Switzerland, beginning in mid-2005. The Swiss also agreed to lift the veil of banking secrecy in the event of a criminal investigation for fraud and money laundering. The Swiss Bankers Association says the agreement will help Switzerland attract more funds, most of which already come from outside Switzerland. Around 56% of the assets held in Swiss banks come from outside the country, Swiss bankers say. But, with banking consolidation finally under way, Swiss banks are faced with a tough choice: Stay put and watch as European banks consolidate around them or take the plunge with a cross-border deal and risk compromising banking secrecy. If a Swiss bank was engaged in a merger or was taken over by a foreign bank, it could end up having to hand over confidential client data to a foreign regulator, particularly as tax authorities gain increased powers to seek out money launderers and tax dodgers. So far the Swiss have successfully defended their home turf. "There are no examples of a major merger or acquisition between a Swiss and a non-Swiss bank that wasn't arranged according to Swiss terms," says Ray Soudah, founder of mergers-and-acquisitions boutique Millenium Associates and a former managing director of UBS AG. Indeed, just the idea that client data could wind up in the hands of a foreign regulator makes Swiss bankers shudder. "The proportion of foreign assets would suffer" as clients closed their accounts, says Thomas Sutter, spokesman of the Swiss Bankers Association. But not doing a cross-border deal could see Swiss banks left on the sidelines as European banks consolidate in an attempt to keep up with U.S. giants such as Citigroup Inc., which has a market value of $230 billion. Among those that could be left behind: Bank Julius Baer, whose parent, Julius Baer Holding has a market value of 2.95 billion Swiss francs; Credit Suisse Group, with a market value of 45.9 billion Swiss francs; and Bank Vontobel, whose parent, Vontobel , has a market value of about 1.64 billion Swiss francs. UBS, the other giant Swiss bank, likely wouldn't be affected as much as other financial institutions in Switzerland. With a market capitalization of 95.8 billion Swiss francs, it may be large enough to be an acquirer rather than a merger partner or takeover target. If so, UBS would be able to continue abiding by Swiss confidentiality requirements for operations located in Switzerland. Already, fears that client data could be compromised have proved a deterrent for cross-border deals, says Merrill Lynch analyst Jacques-Henri Gaulard. "Banking secrecy is one of the things that prevents an alliance between Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank," he contends. Spokesmen for Germany's Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse declined to comment. Both banks have pledged to pursue a strategy of concentrating on organic growth and improving profitability. Concern over the sanctity of client data also undermined a proposed deal earlier this year to combine Deutsche Boerse AG, operator of the Frankfurt stock exchange, and SWX Group, operator of the Swiss stock exchange. SWX supervisory-board members worried that a German supervisory authority would be in a position to ask which Swiss client had instigated a share trade, potentially breaching Swiss client confidentiality, people familiar with the matter say. The need to protect Swiss client data may also prove to be a deterrent to creating economies of scale if a merger or takeover deal is reached, because a newly merged entity would have trouble centralizing risk management, implementing an overall technology system and maintaining a centralized customer database, unless it was done in Switzerland, a high-cost location. Swiss banking-secrecy laws make even domestic mergers a chore, says Hans Geiger, professor of banking at Zurich University's Swiss Banking Institute. When Credit Suisse took over Schweizerische Volksbank in 1993, customer data couldn't be exchanged. Switzerland's insistence on secrecy could put it on a collision course with European regulators. "International pressure on Switzerland's financial center should ease off, and this is likely to foster renewed faith in Switzerland's stability and legal security among clients, whose confidence may have been shaken over recent years as a result of the repeated verbal attacks from the EU," says Pierre G. Mirabaud, Swiss Bankers Association chairman. Write to Edward Taylor at edward.taylor at wsj.com1 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109943463679262716,00.html Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) mailto:edward.taylor at wsj.com Copyright 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 2 21:42:28 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 00:42:28 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 6:29 PM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote: >Do you seriously think the war on bogey^H^H^Hterrorism can ever be won? You're gonna love this one: You can't have "terrorism" without state sponsors. We take out (by whatever means at hand...) state sponsors of terrorism, and, hey, presto, no terrorism. Iraq. Syria. Iran. Libya. Doesn't look so hard to me. Oh. That's right. Libya rolled over. Americans -- actually westerners in general -- may win ugly, Peter, but, so far, they win. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From bill.stewart at pobox.com Wed Nov 3 01:30:16 2004 From: bill.stewart at pobox.com (Bill Stewart) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 01:30:16 -0800 Subject: So Who Won? In-Reply-To: <200411030654.iA36sMv7023030@artifact.psychedelic.net> References: <200411030654.iA36sMv7023030@artifact.psychedelic.net> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.0.20041103012956.037ed8f8@pop.idiom.com> At 10:54 PM 11/2/2004, Eric Cordian wrote: >So who won the US election? The turd sandwich, or the giant douche? Cthulhu appears to be way ahead. From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Tue Nov 2 06:32:42 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 03:32:42 +1300 Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: Eugen Leitl writes: >On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >> >No cypherpunks content. Just local politics. And it's not even original, they've mostly just translated it into English, updated it a bit (e.g. League of Nations -> UN), and changed the Russian names and references to Middle Eastern ones. Peter. From jya at pipeline.com Wed Nov 3 07:33:34 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 07:33:34 -0800 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <0843e1af1e7707ac6a97b80ea6afb65a@dizum.com> Message-ID: The US has not won since WW2. Rebellions, now called terrorist wars, have been far more successful. If you want to be a winner do not enlist in military forces of states, rather get a spin contract far from danger, arguing the virtues of mightily fearsome hardware and sacrificial patriotism. The US, a hidebound state, engages in limited combat, dithers, gets youngsters killed, parades the funerals and heroes, eventually pulls out, and the apologists for warmongering do their dirty. Still, it can be said of US military might: more servicemen die of military and civilian accidents, ill health, murders and suicide than in combat. Worse, deaths and maimings from friendly fire and bad medical care, not to say military justice, remain a high hazard of high technology and a natsec/military policy of acceptance and/or denial of responsibility for self- caused casualties and homicidal behavior in abused and abandoned service members -- Tim McVeigh one of tens of thousands who attack at home due to momentum rigged by inept military training and ethics. Bob Hettinga is just baiting by putting up flimsy arguments for western supremacy, evangelizing brand USA. Hoovering the yokels who cannot not believe their kind are chosen people. Standard fare of US (Western, all) state-sponsored education and religion and, oh my god, journalism. Quote of the day from the NY Times: "every journalist should spend a month in jail to appreciate the freedom of the press." This from a reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Report, to be closed shortly by Dow Jones. From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 05:42:08 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 08:42:08 -0500 Subject: So Who Won? In-Reply-To: <200411030654.iA36sMv7023030@artifact.psychedelic.net> References: <200411030654.iA36sMv7023030@artifact.psychedelic.net> Message-ID: At 10:54 PM -0800 11/2/04, Eric Cordian wrote: >So who won the US election? The turd sandwich, or the giant douche? The Turd Sandwich, of course... Vote Turd Sandwich!!! Advancing the cause of jingoism and darkness, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 06:49:16 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 09:49:16 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <0843e1af1e7707ac6a97b80ea6afb65a@dizum.com> References: <0843e1af1e7707ac6a97b80ea6afb65a@dizum.com> Message-ID: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 12:50 PM +0100 11/3/04, Nomen Nescio wrote: >Nonsense! Are you in junior high? Are you high, junior? Or is it just your politics that sound so... sophomoric? :-) >This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic >forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those >are inequalities and injustice anywhere. Ah. That's right. Inequality, instead of causing progress, causes damnation. Where's Robespierre when we really need him? Another useful idiot for "equality". >As long as the most powerful >nations of the world continues to exploit the earth's resources >without taking appropriate considerations to other nations the wrath >and dismay of people elsewhere will always persist. Communism, Fuck Yeah!!! States are People Too!!!! Please. Take the towel out from under the dorm-room door and quit regurgitating what you learned passing the bong around. "Groups" are not people. They don't have rights, for instance. Only people have rights. Nation-states are not people either. More the point, they aren't people in a dialectical struggle to free themselves from the Oppressive Industrial West, any more than "the workers" are in a dialectical struggle to free themselves from some guy in a top-hat and spats. If you'd learned any history, you'd know that the first argument is the result of the complete failure of the *premises* of the first to happen at all, and that both arguments have been demonstrated wrong in the face of *evidence*: the explosion of the "bourgeoisie" in the West (that's "middle-class" to those of us with a state-school education; the group including *you*, bunky, unless your name is Bush or "Kerry" [really Forbes or Cohn, take your pick] and you went to say, Andover and Yale), and the explosion of gross domestic product in the very countries you now claim the west exploits. If you don't believe that, ask that Sidekick-wearing software engineer in Bangalore the next time you're talking to a help-desk sometime about how Nehru, the great Indian Leveller, was such a wonderful guy that millions of his own countrymen starved during his tenure as the Indian more equal than all the others. It wasn't until Indians actually started to free their markets that people stopped starving in the streets. Our culture -- yours, too, bunky, since I bet you don't shit into a hole in the floor and pray 5 times a day for, as Hanson appropriately calls it, a nuclear caliphate --- has figured out a way to make more new stuff cheaper, and to continually do it for the last 2500 years or so. And, guess what? As a result, we can kill more people cheaper, too. That means we win wars. That means we'll win this one, too. Because, if you hadn't noticed, they have to use *our* stuff to fight *us*. Some around here see that as a bug, of course, but I see that much more as a feature: I'll see that "bug", raise you a couple of MOABs, and call the bet. >Not understanding >this or simply neglecting it will further add to the negative >feelings and opinions and fuel extremism. Ah. That's right. I'm not "nuanced" enough. It's too *complicated* for anyone who didn't take your sophomore (cryptomarxist) "History Studies" class, or whatever. Please. >The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make people >feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the world. >As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world >hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all >the problem that leads to. "If we would all just get along", the lion would still eat the lamb for a mid-afternoon snack, bunky, and then lie down for a nap. Singing "Kumbaya" in Arabic won't make it happen any different. More to the point, some mook in chi-pants marching in a black-block in Seattle advocating the confiscation of what someone *earns* by *working* is not going to make some *other* islamist mook, who also got his way paid through college by *his* daddy, to stop building bombs and crashing airplanes into skyscrapers. What *will* stop mooks of the latter persuasion is to kill as many of them as possible, and as quickly as possible. Maybe their parents, too, for raising an entire generation of ignorant superstitious children. It was ever thus, however. The Meijii Japanese could *copy*, even perfect, aircraft and aircraft carriers, but they couldn't *invent* new stuff, like, say, atom bombs. Only markets can do that, bunky. More to the point, only markets full of free people arguing their heads off about what's right and wrong can do that. >Continuing being arrogant and policing the world without listening >to the oppressed people in the middle east and elsewhere will never >ever eradicate terrorism. You may may or may not be able to >reasonable confidently hinder most terror deeds (but only after >having turned also the western civilization into police states) but >you cannot stop the oppressed man from growing the hatred i his >mind. Hint: "policing" the world is what happens when, after 30 years of attacks we actually *ignore* because we're too busy to care, someone kills enough people to get our attention. Then we kill them back. A lot. >If you do not understand this you are not only unintelligent IMNSHO >but also part of the problem itself. Ah. Stupid me. I should have been in the dorm room that day. Do you have notes? Dude, I was *in* that dorm room, once. Then something marvellous happened maybe 10 years later. I grew up. >You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face >reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. (Malcolm >X) There we go. Wisdom from a thug. How about this thug, instead, kid, quoted just about as much out of context as you have yours: "When the hares made speeches in the assembly and demanded that all should have equality, the lions replied, "Where are your claws and teeth?" -- attributed to Antisthenes in Aristotle, 'Politics', 3.7.2 Oh. That's right. One shouldn't read Aristotle. He was a White Male Oppressor... >Johnny Doelittle Little Johnny Doe? Stand in the headlights, dude. It's waaay brighter over there... Sheesh. When will September ever end? Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQYjv5cPxH8jf3ohaEQIu9gCfTG/jokeSyqyQtB62bWVynThGgIIAnirf HxrqsKmF2LmkIgZZRtlC2ddZ =6Irp -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "When the hares made speeches in the assembly and demanded that all should have equality, the lions replied, "Where are your claws and teeth?" -- attributed to Antisthenes in Aristotle, 'Politics', 3.7.2 From kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com Wed Nov 3 06:53:57 2004 From: kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com (John Kelsey) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 09:53:57 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: <15186162.1099493638744.JavaMail.root@ernie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> >From: "R.A. Hettinga" >Sent: Nov 2, 2004 10:55 AM >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day ... >Expect more carnage than culture when Bush is elected. I gather we waited to start the offensive in Fallujah(sp?) until the polls were all closed. I'm not sure how much of this was trying to time things not to interfere with the election (the buildup has been going on for awhile, and Kerry could have squawked about this but didn't, so presumably he didn't think it was unfair for the attack to be delayed a bit), and how much was trying to bury the coverage of a pretty bloody battle with a lot of civilians dying and a lot of peoples homes destroyed, behind the whole election coverage. >Cheers, >RAH --John From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 07:05:19 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:05:19 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 7:33 AM -0800 11/3/04, John Young wrote: >The US has not won since WW2. Nope. Not at all. 1. Korea we lost by shoving the commies all the way up to the Yalu river. And then leaving them to fester behind a still-extant DMZ until they're almost enough of a "nuisance", to lots of people, including the now-almost-former-communist Chinese to worry over. 2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses "revolted", at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough. The Cold War we lost by... Wait a minute. We didn't lose. See 1., and 2., above. That leaves us, what, John? Grenada? Panama? Hell, Columbia? Oh. Right. Lebanon. Tell ya what. Let's start the clock on this war at, say, the assasination of Bobby Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan, include the Beiruit truck bombing by reference as a battle, and see how we stand in a decade or so, shall we? C'mon, John. Think faster, or something. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQYjzo8PxH8jf3ohaEQLrKACgpPVvDmuAS+ZE/9OAwZBAneLGztIAn2TK eVqIGmJf1iLvKLe55TuIgQYf =SOlw -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From pcapelli at gmail.com Wed Nov 3 07:29:45 2004 From: pcapelli at gmail.com (Pete Capelli) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:29:45 -0500 Subject: Musings on "getting out the vote" In-Reply-To: <418874E8.C98523F9@cdc.gov> References: <418874E8.C98523F9@cdc.gov> Message-ID: On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 22:04:24 -0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote: > At least I live in a blue state. The reds, you've earned what you've > earned. So ... don't blame you, you voted for Kodos? -- Pete Capelli pcapelli at ieee.org http://www.capelli.org PGP Key ID:0x829263B6 "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 07:45:38 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:45:38 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: <0843e1af1e7707ac6a97b80ea6afb65a@dizum.com> Message-ID: ObPedantry: At 9:49 AM -0500 11/3/04, R.A. Hettinga wrote: >If you'd learned any history, you'd know that the first argument is xxxxx second >the result of the complete failure of the *premises* of the first to >happen at all -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Wed Nov 3 07:50:14 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 10:50:14 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: "2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses "revolted", at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough." Are you trollin' m'friend, or have you been smokin' James Donald's ground up toenails? -TD Mao accused the US of being a "paper tiger", and there may be some truth to that. >From: "R.A. Hettinga" >To: John Young , cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day >Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:05:19 -0500 > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >At 7:33 AM -0800 11/3/04, John Young wrote: > >The US has not won since WW2. > >Nope. Not at all. > >1. Korea we lost by shoving the commies all the way up to the Yalu >river. And then leaving them to fester behind a still-extant DMZ >until they're almost enough of a "nuisance", to lots of people, >including the now-almost-former-communist Chinese to worry over. > >2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses >"revolted", at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed >up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar >daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent >something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough. > >The Cold War we lost by... Wait a minute. We didn't lose. See 1., and >2., above. > >That leaves us, what, John? Grenada? Panama? Hell, Columbia? Oh. >Right. Lebanon. Tell ya what. Let's start the clock on this war at, >say, the assasination of Bobby Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan, include the >Beiruit truck bombing by reference as a battle, and see how we stand >in a decade or so, shall we? > >C'mon, John. Think faster, or something. > >Cheers, >RAH > > > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >Version: PGP 8.0.3 > >iQA/AwUBQYjzo8PxH8jf3ohaEQLrKACgpPVvDmuAS+ZE/9OAwZBAneLGztIAn2TK >eVqIGmJf1iLvKLe55TuIgQYf >=SOlw >-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee. Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From jya at pipeline.com Wed Nov 3 11:02:09 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 11:02:09 -0800 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Bob, But your defenses of the fatherland are hollow formulas. There has been no war to win, a war the US is forever stealing from the citizenry to prepare for, and then fucking up with the minor skirmishes by having no doctrine or training to apply its mythical might, except, as always, to explain away abject failure with fairy tales like you're telling. Deterence is bullshit, but it worked to keep the Soviet and US militarists and their supplies in top level comfort. Now, the US has no complicit partner in raiding the public till, so it fabricates the terrorist threat, and lockstepping right along comes Russia, the UK and all the natsec bullshitters (slanted intelligence addicts) to march to the beat of bucks aflowing imperially. Dig deeper, middle-aged spinner, your history seems to have been framed by the Cold War and its bastard mini-me terrorism racket here lately. Do you by any chance have a contract with the tomfoolers? Or is it just natural to believe sugar daddy's tales of conquest and invulnerability? And, what is this shit about needing to kill as many of the varmints as possible? Have you ever tried to do that, these mean sumbitches are not birds and rabbits and women and children. Beware the May/Donald megadeath syndrome which always indicates a yellow stripe down the back of those who love to advocate others dying for their comfort and safety -- in large numbers, as if big bragging makes it braver. Weenies do that. From jamesd at echeque.com Wed Nov 3 11:11:15 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 11:11:15 -0800 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41892D53.6050207@echeque.com> -- R.A. Hettinga wrote: > Seriously, any future crypto-anarchy / anarcho-capitalist society is > probably not going to succeed unless it can project *more* force > than we can project currently with force monopoly -- not less. That > *doesn't* mean centralized, but it certainly means *more*. It is often argued that since war, violence, etc, are public goods, only a state can efficiently defend against states. Yet in most wars since 1980, non state entities have done most of the heavy lifting -loose coalitions containing many independent groups, for example the contras, the holy warriors that overthrew the Taliban. Looking at the events of World War II, it looks to me that it does indeed require a state to conquer and occupy a hostile government, as the US conquered and occupied Germany, but the Japanese army was broken by a thousand small groups. Defeating a large scale evildoer is a public good - but large scale evil consists of many acts of small scale evil, and defeating each particular small scale evil act is a private good. When it came to the part of the war that was purely a public good, conquering the German and Japanese homelands, America did indeed bear almost the whole burden, but when it came to defending Australia against the Japanese, the Australians bore the major burden, and similarly for most other battlefields outside of the aggressors' homelands. Most German troops died fighting Russians in Russia, not Americans in Germany. The particular victims of particular Japanese or German acts of aggression counter attacked those particular Japanese or Germans attacking them. National defense, or at least some forms of national defense, such as destroying Hitler's Germany, is a public good, and genuinely anarchist societies are apt to under provide public goods. On the other hand governments tend to provide the wrong kind of public goods, providing what serves their purposes rather than the supposed purpose of the public good, Further, when a government gets in the business of providing a some supposed public good, it creates a lobby, which results in the public good being over provided, thus for example ever lengthening copyright, ever more expansive patents for ever more trivial "inventions", and, of course, the infamous military/industrial complex, such as Haliburton. War, for example destroying Hitler's Germany, is the most plausibly essential public good, the strongest justification for the state. But when we look at the defeat of the Soviet Union, or the defeat of the Taliban, this argument looks considerably weaker. The heavy lifting in those wars was done by loose alliances of small groups, for example the holy warriors and the contras, which did not rely on a single large centralized authority to support the public good of defeat of an oppressive regime. In the second world war, public good theory would lead us to expect that the most powerful state, America would bear almost the whole burden of defeating the threat, and smaller states would hang back and cheer the winner. The holy warriors were probably effective against the Soviets because each holy warrior was defending his home, and each small group of holy warriors were defending their village. Among the contras, it appears that the Indian contras defended the Indians against forced collectivization, breaking up collectives with extreme violence and killing the collectives functionaries and administrators, often in disturbingly unpleasant ways, but failed to participate in other contra struggles. Thus anarchic forms of society appear to be capable of waging war defensively with considerably effectiveness, but are considerably less capable of taking the war to places far away. This is not such a severe limitation as it might appear, since the Soviet Union was overthrown by essentially defensive wars, leading to the dominoes falling all the way to Moscow. It is the nature of Islam to impose dhimmitude on nonbelievers, without much regard for official state boundaries. "Dhimmitude" being a dangerously inferior status where one's property is insecure, and women are apt to be raped. Existing Muslim states often fail to prosecute crimes against infidels, and when crimes are prosecuted, penalties are slight. The West has tried to confine Dhimmitude inside a system of states - the Muslims can oppress their minorities inside Muslim state boundaries all they like, but cannot oppress outside Muslim state boundaries. This artificial boundary bends under pressure, creating the conflict we now see. The anarchic equivalent of the current policy of imperial state building, would be to enter mutual defense arrangements with dhimmi, without regard to state boundaries. The Taliban had imposed Dhimmi status on Muslims they did not agree with in Afghanistan. An anarchic America would not be able to occupy Iraq, nor would it be capable of "building democracy" in Afghanistan, but it would be able to do the equivalent of sending special forces to assist the Northern Alliance. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Jyneib4EqTRVeeBY0/BjpjdEidDWCmp8YSQkckag 47p0ym1TCnknVRDL2q1wHz9ykyIr4wMdZjZBin9s/ From jamesd at echeque.com Wed Nov 3 11:11:56 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 11:11:56 -0800 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41892D7C.6030309@echeque.com> -- Peter Gutmann wrote: > Well it wasn't the point I was trying to make, which was comparing > it to predictions made by (the propaganda division of) another > super-power in the mid 1940s about winning an unwinnable war because > God/righteousness/whatever was on their side, and all they had to do > was hold out a bit longer. Compare the general tone of the WSJ > article to the one in e.g. the first half of > http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documen > ts/htestmnt.htm. > But it is hardly a matter of "holding out". So far the Pentagon has shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand, which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears. As quagmires go, this one has not yet got shoelaces muddy. The enemies are the one's that have heroic fantasies of holding out against hopeless odds, as for example Fallujah. The question is not whether the terrorists keep Falljah, but merely whether Pentagon gets a city or a pile of rubble. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 9M6CeBC9wwBisQe3JNJvnnu758kvx8Rq2e2KM9b2 41XkwhnPAbRy29/XaMnNedLxI40PWmNEk4y2tUdn7 From lindac at dimacs.rutgers.edu Wed Nov 3 08:15:50 2004 From: lindac at dimacs.rutgers.edu (Linda Casals) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:15:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: DIMACS Workshop on Markets as Predictive Devices (Information Markets) Message-ID: ************************************************* DIMACS Workshop on Markets as Predictive Devices (Information Markets) February 2-4, 2005 DIMACS Center, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ Organizers: Robin Hanson, George Mason University, rhanson at gmu.edu John Ledyard, California Institute of Technology, jledyard at hss.caltech.edu David Pennock, Overture Services, David.Pennock at overture.com Presented under the auspices of the Special Focus on Computation and the Socio-Economic Sciences. ************************************************ For decades, economists have studied an astonishing "side effect'' of financial and wagering markets: their ability to serve as highly accurate forecasting devices. This workshop aims to explore the use of markets as a substitute for, or complement to, more traditional forecasting tools. We will examine how information flows from traders to the market and back again, how market mechanisms process information, how market prices communicate information and forecasts, and what mechanisms best foster accurate and statistically-testable predictions. The workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners from a variety of relevant fields, including economics, finance, computer science, and statistics, in both academia and industry, to discuss the state of the art today, and the challenges and prospects for tomorrow. A market designed from the outset for information gathering and forecasting is called an information market. Information markets can be used to elicit a collective estimate of the expected value or probability of a random variable, reflecting information dispersed across an entire population of traders. The market prediction is not usually an average or median of individual opinions, but is a complex summarization reflecting the game-theoretic interplay of traders as they obtain and leverage information, and as they react to the actions of others obtaining and leveraging their own information, etc. In the best case scenario, the market price reflects a forecast that is a perfect Bayesian integration of all the information spread across all of the traders, properly accounting even for redundancy. This is the equilibrium scenario called rational expectations in the economics literature, and is the assumption underlying the strong form of the efficient markets hypothesis in finance. The degree to which market forecasts approach optimality in practice, or at least surpass other known methods of forecasting, is remarkable. Supporting evidence can be found in empirical studies of options markets, commodity futures markets, political stock markets, sports betting markets, horse racing markets, market games, laboratory investigations of experimental markets, and field tests. In nearly all these cases, to the extent that the financial instruments or bets are tied to real-world events, market prices reveal a reliable forecast about the likely unfolding of those events, often beating expert opinions or polls. Despite a growing experimental literature, many questions remain regarding how best to design, deploy, analyze, and understand information markets, including both technical challenges (e.g., designing combinatorial exchanges and social challenges (e.g., overcoming legal and ethical concerns). The search for answers will benefit from input from economists (including specialists in mechanism design, experimental economics, financial markets, wagering markets, and rational expectations theory), statisticians and decision theorists (including experts in forecasting, belief aggregation, group decision making, Bayesian updating, and opinion polling), and computer scientists (including experts in combinatorial exchanges, distributed computing, information theory, and mixing worst-case and Bayesian analysis). This workshop will seek to bring together a variety of experts representing these fields, to engage in a dialog describing current and future research directions to facilitate the design, refinement, and proliferation of markets as predictive devices. As part of the workshop, one or more tutorials are planned for the benefit of students and other newcomers to the field; little or no background knowledge will be assumed. ************************************************************** Call for Participation: This workshop will include talks on information markets (a.k.a, prediction markets, event markets, or idea futures) by a number of distinguished invited speakers. Speakers will cover a range of topics including mechanism design, experiments, analysis, policy, and industry experience. Speakers will include representatives from academia, industry, and government. The workshop will feature research talks, opinions, reports of industry experience, and discussion of government policy from the perspective of a number of fields, including economics, business, finance, computer science, gambling/gaming, and policy. See the workshop program for more details. The workshop will feature a tutorial session on Wednesday afternoon (Feb. 2, 2005) to help those new to the field get up to speed. The workshop will include a panel discussion on the Policy Analysis Market (a.k.a., "Terror Futures") and a "rump" session where anyone who requests time can have the floor for five minutes to speak on any relevant topic. To participate in the rump session, please email David Pennock at pennockd at yahoo-inc.com. ************************************************************** Registration Fees: (Pre-registration deadline: January 26, 2005) Please see website for additional registration information. ********************************************************************* Information on participation, registration, accomodations, and travel can be found at: http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/Workshops/Markets/ **PLEASE BE SURE TO PRE-REGISTER EARLY** ******************************************************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jamesd at echeque.com Wed Nov 3 11:20:52 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 11:20:52 -0800 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41892F94.3080607@echeque.com> -- Peter Gutmann wrote: > Fighting an unwinnable war always seems to produce the same type of > rhetoric, It is a little premature to call this war unwinnable. The kill ratio so far is comparable with Britain's zulu war. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 9YCccdHmWgBxj3a1UFFKM7Xyl1qKvkQYJoNuuZEw 4pOgjIzTXDiWQ1xXvdwBxCk93EgSXiZfQ29ag+5sW From jamesd at echeque.com Wed Nov 3 11:27:43 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 11:27:43 -0800 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <0843e1af1e7707ac6a97b80ea6afb65a@dizum.com> References: <0843e1af1e7707ac6a97b80ea6afb65a@dizum.com> Message-ID: <4189312F.7000000@echeque.com> -- > This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic > forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those > are inequalities and injustice anywhere. You are quite right, it is unjust that people like Bin Laden are so immensely rich with oil wealth. To remedy this problem, Bush should confiscate the Middle Eastern oil reserves. You are using stale old communist rhetoric - but today's terrorists no longer not even pretend to fight on behalf of the poor and oppressed. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG hB70Rn/r/Izz2zUYn/rVfOyEDZVqu1UUzdNLVJJe 4inRuB429RCVLG1VVfP9Z5CBGfL+mE/dNmP+GZvcb From nobody at dizum.com Wed Nov 3 03:50:04 2004 From: nobody at dizum.com (Nomen Nescio) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:50:04 +0100 (CET) Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: <0843e1af1e7707ac6a97b80ea6afb65a@dizum.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 R.A. Hettinga: > You're gonna love this one: You can't have "terrorism" without > state sponsors. Nonsense! Are you in junior high? > We take out (by whatever means at hand...) state sponsors of > terrorism, and, hey, presto, no terrorism. Iraq. Syria. Iran. > Libya. Doesn't look so hard to me. Oh. That's right. Libya rolled > over. > > Americans -- actually westerners in general -- may win ugly, Peter, > but, so far, they win. This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those are inequalities and injustice anywhere. As long as the most powerful nations of the world continues to exploit the earth's resources without taking appropriate considerations to other nations the wrath and dismay of people elsewhere will always persist. Not understanding this or simply neglecting it will further add to the negative feelings and opinions and fuel extremism. The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all the problem that leads to. Continuing being arrogant and policing the world without listening to the oppressed people in the middle east and elsewhere will never ever eradicate terrorism. You may may or may not be able to reasonable confidently hinder most terror deeds (but only after having turned also the western civilization into police states) but you cannot stop the oppressed man from growing the hatred i his mind. If you do not understand this you are not only unintelligent IMNSHO but also part of the problem itself. You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. (Malcolm X) Johnny Doelittle -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Tom Ridge Special v1.01 iQA/AwUBQYicHzVaKWz2Ji/mEQJ/KgCeJaL0A7KEtXrdg6DmER5yGHwhJWEAoNA/ 96lJo2JRLf4zWoOTjELrPQB4 =Uq+t -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From alan at clueserver.org Wed Nov 3 12:55:58 2004 From: alan at clueserver.org (alan) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:55:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, Tyler Durden wrote: > Well, this may actually be less hard than we thought. Indeed, it's the one > vaguely silver lining in this toxic cloud. Outsourcing to India will > actually add a lot to world stability. Of course, we'll loose a lot of jobs > in the process, but in the long run we'll eventually have another strong > trading partner like Japan or France or the Dutch. Bush will sell us out to > big business and all of the less-well-off will suffer like crazy in the > process, but it will actually make things better in the long run. The only > thing we need to worry about is not melting the ice caps in the process. You forget that Bush and his cronies are Evangelical Christians. They believe that the world is going to end *soon* and that it is a good thing. These are people who are doing everything they can to make the world a less stable place because in doing so they bring about armagedon. (Then Jesus will come back and they will be rewarded for bringing about the deaths of billions. Sometimes i wonder if they worship Jesus or Cthulhu. (Maybe they are the same. How else could he walk on water?) -- Q: Why do programmers confuse Halloween and Christmas? A: Because OCT 31 == DEC 25. From emc at artifact.psychedelic.net Wed Nov 3 14:01:09 2004 From: emc at artifact.psychedelic.net (Eric Cordian) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 14:01:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Why you keep losing to this idiot In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200411032201.iA3M19wK018789@artifact.psychedelic.net> > I think this is the answer: Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. Isn't that what Democracy is all about? The 51% simpletons imposing their will on the 49% non-simpletons? Proportional representation is our friend. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law" From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 12:07:44 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:07:44 -0500 Subject: Why you keep losing to this idiot Message-ID: This comes from an old joke. A grand master, in the middle of a chess match, jumps up onto the table, kicks off all the pieces, and screams, almost unintelligibly, "Why must I *lose*, to such *idiots*!!!". :-). Cheers, RAH ------- Simple but Effective Why you keep losing to this idiot. By William Saletan Updated Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2004, at 12:05 AM PT 12:01 a.m. PT: Sigh. I really didn't want to have to write this. George W. Bush is going to win re-election. Yeah, the lawyers will haggle about Ohio. But this time, Democrats don't have the popular vote on their side. Bush does. If you're a Bush supporter, this is no surprise. You love him, so why shouldn't everybody else? But if you're dissatisfied with Bush-or if, like me, you think he's been the worst president in memory-you have a lot of explaining to do. Why don't a majority of voters agree with us? How has Bush pulled it off? I think this is the answer: Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. Bush is a very simple man. You may think that makes him a bad president, as I do, but lots of people don't-and there are more of them than there are of us. If you don't believe me, take a look at those numbers on your TV screen. Think about the simplicity of everything Bush says and does. He gives the same speech every time. His sentences are short and clear. "Government must do a few things and do them well," he says. True to his word, he has spent his political capital on a few big ideas: tax cuts, terrorism, Iraq. Even his electoral strategy tonight was powerfully simple: Win Florida, win Ohio, and nothing else matters. All those lesser states-Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire-don't matter if Bush reels in the big ones. This is what so many people like about Bush's approach to terrorism. They forgive his marginal and not-so-marginal screw-ups, because they can see that fundamentally, he "gets it." They forgive his mismanagement of Iraq, because they see that his heart and will are in the right place. And while they may be unhappy about their economic circumstances, they don't hold that against him. What you and I see as unreflectiveness, they see as transparency. They trust him. Now look at your candidate, John Kerry. What quality has he most lacked? Not courage-he proved that in Vietnam. Not will-he proved that in Iowa. Not brains-he proved that in the debates. What Kerry lacked was simplicity. Bush had one message; Kerry had dozens. Bush had one issue; Kerry had scores. Bush ended his sentences when you expected him to say more; Kerry went on and on, adding one prepositional phrase after another, until nobody could remember what he was talking about. Now Bush has two big states that mean everything, and Kerry has a bunch of little ones that add up to nothing. If you're a Democrat, here's my advice. Do what the Republicans did in 1998. Get simple. Find a compelling salesman and get him ready to run for president in 2008. Put aside your quibbles about preparation, stature, expertise, nuance, and all that other hyper-sophisticated garbage that caused you to nominate Kerry. You already have legions of people with preparation, stature, expertise, and nuance ready to staff the executive branch of the federal government. You don't need one of them to be president. You just need somebody to win the White House and appoint them to his administration. And that will require all the simplicity, salesmanship, and easygoing humanity they don't have. The good news is, that person is already available. His name is John Edwards. If you have any doubt about his electability, just read the exit polls from the 2004 Democratic primaries. If you don't think he's ready to be president-if you don't think he has the right credentials, the right gravitas, the right subtlety of thought-ask yourself whether these are the same things you find wanting in George W. Bush. Because evidently a majority of the voting population of the United States doesn't share your concern. They seem to be attracted to a candidate with a simple message, a clear focus, and a human touch. You might want to consider their views, since they're the ones who will decide whether you're sitting here again four years from now, wondering what went wrong. In 1998 and 1999, Republicans cleared the field for George W. Bush. Members of Congress and other major officeholders threw their weight behind him to make sure he got the nomination. They united because their previous presidential nominee, a clumsy veteran senator, had gone down to defeat. They were facing eight years out of power, and they were hungry. Do what they did. Give Edwards a job that will position him to run for president again in a couple of years. Clear the field of Hillary Clinton and any other well-meaning liberal who can't connect with people outside those islands of blue on your electoral map. Because you're going to get a simple president again next time, whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that president will be from your party or the other one. 9:33 p.m. PT: That proviso about the exit polls matching the returns is looking quite a bit more important now than it did three hours ago. Bush has Florida and Colorado in the bag. All scenarios for a Kerry victory now require Ohio. Kerry led 51-49 in the Ohio exit poll this afternoon. But he also led 51-49 in the Florida exit poll, and we've seen what happened there. Nationwide, the exit polls had Kerry up 51-48. But with 80 million votes counted already, it's Bush who has a 51-48 lead. So at this point, the exit polls are at best meaningless. Or worse, if you're a Democrat, the six-point gap between what the exit polls predicted for Kerry nationally and what the returns show so far means that in Ohio, a two-point lead for Kerry in the exit poll foreshadows a Bush win by as many as four points. In New Mexico, two-thirds of the precincts have reported, and it doesn't look good for Kerry: He's down 51-48. So even if he takes Iowa, where he's now leading with two-thirds of the vote tallied, he'll have to win either Nevada, which has just begun counting, or Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, he's hanging on to a 14,000-vote lead-that's a single percentage point-with half the precincts reporting. If Kerry holds that lead in Wisconsin and closes what is now a 120,000-vote Bush lead in Ohio, he's the next president. Or if he holds his lead in Iowa and picks off Nevada, he can get the same result-but not without Ohio. Three-quarters of the precincts in Ohio have now reported, and Kerry still trails by 126,000 votes, about 3 percent of the total. I don't think he can pull it off. But I've been wrong so many times now that I'd be happy-no, really, in this case I would be positively delighted-to be proved wrong again. 7:38 p.m. PT: I should have mentioned before that if Bush wins both Ohio and Florida, he needs only Colorado to get to 269. So that's just two states where he needs the exit polls to be off. But in both cases the error has to be at least two points, in each case it has to be in his direction, and the Colorado exit poll can't be off in the other direction. Let's simplify the calculations. Bush starts with a floor of 213. He leads by one point in the exit poll in Colorado, so let's assume he takes that state, putting him at 222. Here are the remaining states in which Bush trails in the exit polls by fewer than 6 points: Nevada (Bush down 1), Iowa (Bush down 1), Florida (Bush down 2), Ohio (Bush down 2), New Mexico (Bush down 2), and Wisconsin (Bush down 3). That's it. Those are all the states Bush has to work with. If he wins them all, he gets to 296. So Kerry can lock up the election by taking any 28 electoral votes from that group. Here are the combinations that will do the job for Kerry: 1) Florida and any other state. 2) Ohio and Wisconsin. 3) Ohio and any two of the little three: Nevada, New Mexico, and Iowa. Two other variables could be in play. If Kerry takes Colorado, he can wrap up the election by taking a combination of Wisconsin and two of the little three. He won't have to win Ohio or Florida. But if Bush stages an upset in Hawaii, Kerry will have to take one of the little three in addition to Ohio and Wisconsin-or he'll have to take Ohio, Iowa, and either Nevada or New Mexico. Those are the scenarios for now. I'll revisit them as the returns come in and the options narrow. 6:08 p.m. PT: We can't be sure how far tonight's returns will ultimately vary from the late-afternoon exit-poll numbers (see this "Press Box"). But with that understood, let's talk about what the numbers mean, if true, for the electoral map. Bush gets to 189 electoral votes with no problem. Assuming he takes Virginia, he's at 202. With Missouri, where he's 5 points up in the exit polls, he's at 213. Now he needs Colorado. I never took this state seriously as a problem for him, but the afternoon numbers suggest it might be: He's up just a point there. Let's assume he takes it. Now he's at 222. At this point, he has run out of states where he's leading in the exit polls, and he's still looking for a combination of 47 electoral votes to get him to 269. (He wins in the House if it's a tie.) The next best shots are Nevada and Iowa, where he's down a point. Let's say he takes them, too. Now he's at 234, still 35 electoral votes away-and he has run out of states where he's trailing by a single point. He'll have to start winning in places where he's trailing by two. How about New Mexico? Let's give him that. Now he's at 239, but that's still not enough to win the election even if Florida comes around. He'll have to capture the other state where he's down two in the exit polls: Ohio. It seems a bit unfair, making him win a state with 20 electoral votes just to get the three he needs for a tie. Wouldn't it be easier to package Florida or Ohio with Wisconsin? Either combination gets him to 269 or beyond, so let's try that. Colorado plus Nevada plus Iowa plus New Mexico plus Wisconsin plus either Ohio or Florida. For those of you doing the math at home, that's a Bush sweep of five states where the exit polls have him trailing, without losing a single state in which he leads. In three of those states, Bush's winning scenario requires the exit polls to be at least two points off. In Wisconsin, it requires the exit polls to be at least three points off. And it gets uglier from there. Because if even one of these breaks doesn't go Bush's way, there is no remaining state on the board in which he trails by less than six in the exit polls. Bush can win this thing, but he'll need a lot of luck. More than he'll get, if you ask me. William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com Wed Nov 3 12:13:28 2004 From: kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com (John Kelsey) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:13:28 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: <13853217.1099512814152.JavaMail.root@bigbird.psp.pas.earthlink.net> >From: Nomen Nescio >Sent: Nov 3, 2004 6:50 AM >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day ... > The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make >people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the >world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world >hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all >the problem that leads to. Ahh. So all we have to do to end terrorism is to end poverty, injustice, and inequality all over the world. *Phew*. I thought it was going to take something hard. --John From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 12:13:45 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:13:45 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <41892D53.6050207@echeque.com> References: <41892D53.6050207@echeque.com> Message-ID: At 11:11 AM -0800 11/3/04, James A. Donald wrote: >It is often argued that since war, violence, etc, are public goods This is my favorite retort to that: "Externalities are the last refuge of the derigistes." -- Friedrich Hayek An otherwise excellent rant elided... Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Externalities are the last refuge of the derigistes." -- Friedrich Hayek From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 12:16:22 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:16:22 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <41892D53.6050207@echeque.com> References: <41892D53.6050207@echeque.com> Message-ID: At 11:11 AM -0800 11/3/04, James A. Donald wrote: >"Dhimmitude" being >a dangerously inferior status where one's property is insecure, and >women are apt to be raped. ObSmartAssComment: That's why they call it "Dhimmicracy", much less the "Dhimmicratic" Party... :-). Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 12:21:13 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:21:13 -0500 Subject: U.S. stocks surge as Bush heads for victory Message-ID: --- begin forwarded text Midday Report http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?column=Newswatch&dist=nwtam&siteid=mktw Current levels on US market indices at 11:40 am ET Nov 3, 2004 Last Change DJIA 10,182.39 +146.66 S&P 500 1,146.41 +15.85 NASDAQ 2,013.30 +28.51 10-Year U.S. T-Bond 4.13% +0.053 --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 12:23:50 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:23:50 -0500 Subject: DIMACS Workshop on Markets as Predictive Devices (Information Markets) Message-ID: --- begin forwarded text From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Wed Nov 3 13:18:39 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 16:18:39 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: Well, this may actually be less hard than we thought. Indeed, it's the one vaguely silver lining in this toxic cloud. Outsourcing to India will actually add a lot to world stability. Of course, we'll loose a lot of jobs in the process, but in the long run we'll eventually have another strong trading partner like Japan or France or the Dutch. Bush will sell us out to big business and all of the less-well-off will suffer like crazy in the process, but it will actually make things better in the long run. The only thing we need to worry about is not melting the ice caps in the process. -TD >From: John Kelsey >To: Nomen Nescio , cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day >Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:13:28 -0500 (GMT-05:00) > > >From: Nomen Nescio > >Sent: Nov 3, 2004 6:50 AM > >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net > >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day > >... > > The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make > >people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the > >world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world > >hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all > >the problem that leads to. > >Ahh. So all we have to do to end terrorism is to end poverty, injustice, >and inequality all over the world. *Phew*. I thought it was going to take >something hard. > >--John _________________________________________________________________ Get ready for school! Find articles, homework help and more in the Back to School Guide! http://special.msn.com/network/04backtoschool.armx From bill.stewart at pobox.com Wed Nov 3 16:43:57 2004 From: bill.stewart at pobox.com (Bill Stewart) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 16:43:57 -0800 Subject: the new Keyser Sose (was Re: "Do androids dream of electric camels?") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.0.20041103164105.04080858@pop.idiom.com> Not sure if the old Keyser Sose was limping or not, but he came out last week to give George Bush's campaign a helpful "Booga booga booga" to remind the sheeple that he's still there. Bush's speech had bragged that Osama could "run, but he can't hide", and Kerry neglected the chance to remind the public that Osama ran, and he's hidden real well, and that Bush has been too busy with the war on Saddam to bother catching him. From david.koontz at alliedtelesyn.co.nz Tue Nov 2 20:01:12 2004 From: david.koontz at alliedtelesyn.co.nz (david koontz) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 17:01:12 +1300 Subject: "Scan design called portal for hackers" Message-ID: >>> Peter Gutmann 2/11/2004 11:30:36 p.m. >>> >David Honig writes: >>EETimes 25 Oct 04 has an article about how the testing structures on ICs >>makes them vulnerable to attacks. >A link ) would >have been useful... >>The basic idea is that to test a chip, you need to see inside it; this can >>also reveal crypto details (e.g., keys) which compromise the chip. >The JTAG interface is your (that is, the reverse engineer's) friend. This is >why some security devices let you disconnect it using a security-fuse type >mechanism before you ship your product. Of course that only works if (a) the >device allows it, (b) you remember to activate it, and (c) your attacker isn't >sufficiently motivated/funded to use something like microprobing or a FIB >workstation to bypass the disconnect. Historically BIST has been more attractive for crypto hardware because you can also use it for assurance testing prior to use. Invoking it can be hard coded into device initialization. If JTAG is present, you don't have to have internal scan. If you have internal scan you could have a zeroize on entering test mode. This prevents scan chains from being capable of being used to save as well as restore state. If and when is it a problem? If you were to examine FIPS PUB 140-2, 4.5 'Physical Security', 'Table 2 Summary of physical security requirements' and section: 4.5.1 General Physical Security Requirements ... SECURITY LEVEL 1 The following requirements shall apply to all cryptographic modules for Security Level 1. * The cryptographic module shall consist of production-grade components that shall include standard passivation techniques (e.g., a conformal coating or a sealing coat applied over the module's circuitry to protect against environmental or other physical damage). * When performing physical maintenance, all plaintext secret and private keys and other unprotected CSPs contained in the cryptographic module shall be zeroized. Zeroization shall either be performed procedurally by the operator or automatically by the cryptographic module. --- Meaning for a cryptographic module boundary at the chip level, the keys should have been zeroized before physical access. ---- ... SECURITY LEVEL 3 In addition to the general requirements for Security Levels 1 and 2, the following requirements shall apply to all cryptographic modules for Security Level 3. * If the cryptographic module contains any doors or removable covers or if a maintenance access interface is defined, then the module shall contain tamper response and zeroization circuitry. The tamper response and zeroization circuitry shall immediately zeroize all plaintext secret and private keys and CSPs when a door is opened, a cover is removed, or when the maintenance access interface is accessed. The tamper response and zeroization circuitry shall remain operational when plaintext secret and private cryptographic keys or CSPs are contained within the cryptographic module. --- Meaning that physical access will cause zeroization. This would imply zeroization on test mode activation on a JTAG interface on a single chip cryptographic module. You start getting real security at levels 3 and 4, the certification criteria comes from the Commercial COMSEC Evaluation Program (CCEP). Am I worried someone is producing chips that aren't protected? No. I'm more concerned that implementations (systems) aren't properly designed, tested and certified. "They got AES, we got AES" is just a form of snake oil. NOTICE: This message contains privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the addressee named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that you must not disseminate, copy or take any action in reliance on it. If you have received this message in error please notify Allied Telesyn Research Ltd immediately. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender has the authority to issue and specifically states them to be the views of Allied Telesyn Research. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Tue Nov 2 20:21:19 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 17:21:19 +1300 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "R.A. Hettinga" writes: >At 3:32 AM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote: >>Eugen Leitl writes: >>>On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >>>> >>>No cypherpunks content. Just local politics. >> >>And it's not even original, they've mostly just translated it into English, >>updated it a bit (e.g. League of Nations -> UN), and changed the Russian names >>and references to Middle Eastern ones. > >Yup. That's Davis' point, actually. Fuck with the West, we kick your ass. Well it wasn't the point I was trying to make, which was comparing it to predictions made by (the propaganda division of) another super-power in the mid 1940s about winning an unwinnable war because God/righteousness/whatever was on their side, and all they had to do was hold out a bit longer. Compare the general tone of the WSJ article to the one in e.g. the first half of http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/htestmnt.htm. Peter. From roy at rant-central.com Wed Nov 3 14:24:14 2004 From: roy at rant-central.com (Roy M. Silvernail) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 17:24:14 -0500 Subject: Why you keep losing to this idiot In-Reply-To: <200411032201.iA3M19wK018789@artifact.psychedelic.net> References: <200411032201.iA3M19wK018789@artifact.psychedelic.net> Message-ID: <1099520654.718.2.camel@mesmer.rant-central.com> On Wed, 2004-11-03 at 14:01 -0800, Eric Cordian wrote: > > I think this is the answer: Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. > > Isn't that what Democracy is all about? The 51% simpletons imposing their > will on the 49% non-simpletons? > > Proportional representation is our friend. Kornbluth was right. -- Roy M. Silvernail is roy at rant-central.com, and you're not "It's just this little chromium switch, here." - TFS SpamAssassin->procmail->/dev/null->bliss http://www.rant-central.com From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 14:45:37 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:45:37 -0500 Subject: the new Keyser Sose (was Re: "Do androids dream of electric camels?") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 8:34 PM +0000 11/3/04, POPBITCH wrote: > >> Hardline Honeyz 2 << > Al Zarqawi: the unusual suspect > > Mysterious Jordanian celebrity executioner Abu > Musab Al Zarqawi is a huge hit with lovers of > Hardline Honeyz. With a $25m price tag on his > head, al Zarqawi shot to fame as the star of > "Sheik Abu Musab Al Zarqawi slaughters an > American infidel with his own hands", a video > showing the death of Iraq hostage Nicholas Berg. > But is Al Zarqawi for real? > > A Jordanian of that name did fight in Afganistan > in the 80s and in Kurdish Iraq in the 90s, > with a group called Ansar al-Islam, but no more > was heard of him until Colin Powell's famous > warmongering speech to the UN named him as the > link between Saddam and Osama. Since then Al > Zarqawi has become a mythic bogeyman blamed for > almost every real or imagined terrorist threat. > > *Suddenly he was al-Qaeda's bioterrorism expert > and head of terror camps in Saddam-era Iraq; he'd > never previously been linked to either. > * US intelligence experts say Berg's executioner > clearly didn't have a Jordanian accent. > * Iraqi insurgents claimed Al Zarqawi was dead, > and all new captured operatives from Ansar > al-Islam say they've never laid eyes on him. > * CIA said he only had one leg after an operation > in Baghdad, but since the executioner in the > video clearly had two they now say, er, he has > two after all. > > So... Al Zarqawi: he's the new Keyser Sose. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From eugen at leitl.org Wed Nov 3 08:57:10 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:57:10 +0100 Subject: Diebold Message-ID: <20041103165709.GJ1457@leitl.org> So, we know Diebold commited vote fraud. Irregularities, my ass. Why did Kerry just roll over? The second time, after Gore? This just doesn't make sense. There's been over a year to prepare. Or is the entire process just a charade? -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Tue Nov 2 21:29:45 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 18:29:45 +1300 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "R.A. Hettinga" writes: >Germany 1944 does not equal USA 2004, no matter how hard you twist the >kaleidoscope. Fighting an unwinnable war always seems to produce the same type of rhetoric, whether it's the war on some drugs, the war on anyone Bush doesn't like, or the war on anything non-German. The only thing that changes over time are the identities of the bogeymen that are used to justify it. (Do you seriously think the war on bogey^H^H^Hterrorism can ever be won? Leaving aside the obvious debate that you can't even tell who you're at war with, how do you know when you've won?. We have always been at war with Terroristia) Peter. From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 16:24:43 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 19:24:43 -0500 Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: - ADTmag.com Your source code, for sale By Mike Gunderloy Well, maybe not yet. But what does the future hold for those who consider their source code an important proprietary asset? Halloween this year featured more scary stuff than just ghosts and ghouls. It was also the day (at least in the Pacific time zone) when the Source Code Club posted their second Newsletter in a public Usenet group. Despite their innocent-sounding name, the Source Code Club is a group of hackers who are offering to sell the source to commercial products. Their current menu of source code for sale looks like this: * Cisco Pix 6.3.1 - $24,000 * Enterasys Dragon IDS - $19.200 * Napster - $12,000 They also claim to have the source code for many other packages that they haven't announced publicly. "If you are requesting something from a Fortune 100 company, there is a good chance that we might already have it, they say. Now, you might think this business is blatantly illegal, and no doubt it is. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible. They're posting their newsletter to Usenet, probably from an Internet cafe somewhere, so that's not traceable. They'll take orders the same way, and require orders to be encrypted using their PGP key, which is at least reasonably unbreakable at the moment. (As of this writing, I don't see any encrypted messages posted to the newsgroup they use, though). For payment, they're using e-gold, which claims to protect the anonymity of its account holders. Now, it seems reasonably likely that the Source Code Club folks will eventually get caught; going up against Cisco's resources displays at least a strong conviction of invulnerability. But even if these guys get caught, there are deeper issues here. Ten years ago, no one could have dreamed of trying to set up such a business. Ten years from now, advances in cryptography, more forms of currency circulating on the Internet, and improvements in anonymity software are likely to make it impossible to catch a similar operation. What will it mean when hacker groups can in fact do business this way with impunity? First, it's important to note that the ability to sell wares anonymously won't necessarily imply the ability to get inventory. Your best defense against having your own source code leaked is to pay careful attention to its physical security. These days, if I were developing an important commercial product, I'd make sure there was no path between my development or build machines and the public Internet. Hackers can do lots of things, but they still can't leap over physical disconnections. Second, I'd use software that prevents temporary storage devices (like USB sticks) from connecting to the network, and keep CD and DVD burners out of the development boxes as well. It's also worth making sure that your business doesn't depend entirely on source code. While the intellectual property that goes into making software is certainly a valuable asset, it shouldn't be your only asset. Think about ancillary services like training, support, and customization in addition to simply selling software. Finally, note that the Source Code Club business model is based on taking advantage of people wanting to know what's in the software that they purchase. About the pix code, they say "Many intelligence agencies/government organizations will want to know if those 1's and 0's in the pix image really are doing what was advertised. You must ask yourself how well you trust the pix images you download to your appliance from cisco.com." Microsoft (among other companies) has demonstrated how to remove this particular fear factor from customers: share your source code under controlled circumstances. That doesn't mean that you need to adapt an open source model, but when a big customer comes calling, why not walk their engineers through how things work and let them audit their own areas of concern? Given the shifting landscape of intellectual property, and the threat from groups such as the Source Code Club, these are matters you need to think about sooner rather than later. Otherwise you may wake up some morning and find that your major asset has vanished without your even knowing it was in danger. Mike Gunderloy, MCSE, MCSD .NET, MCDBA is an independent software consultant and author working in eastern Washington. He's the editor of ADT's Developer Central newsletter and author of numerous books and articles. You can reach him at MikeG1 at larkfarm.com. This article originally appeared in the November 2004 issue of Application Development Trends. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 18:20:49 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 21:20:49 -0500 Subject: the new Keyser Sose (was Re: "Do androids dream of electric camels?") In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.0.20041103164105.04080858@pop.idiom.com> References: <6.0.3.0.0.20041103164105.04080858@pop.idiom.com> Message-ID: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 4:43 PM -0800 11/3/04, Bill Stewart wrote: >Not sure if the old Keyser Sose was limping or not, >but he came out last week to give George Bush's campaign a helpful >"Booga booga booga" to remind the sheeple that he's still there. Karl Rove did it. Walter Cronkite says so. [Bwahahahaha!] >Bush's speech had bragged that Osama could "run, but he can't hide", >and Kerry neglected the chance to remind the public that >Osama ran, and he's hidden real well, and that Bush has been >too busy with the war on Saddam to bother catching him. Two words, Bill: Whitey Bulger. Boo! Mirthfully yours, RAH Glee. It's not just for breakfast, anymore. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQYmR38PxH8jf3ohaEQItdwCggwC+AQIB1gCdz1WSAcan9IAjVWwAn3rQ Uzn3hZfNOEn8x7P2fqT7Bk5v =O7v+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 3 20:30:05 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 23:30:05 -0500 Subject: Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal Message-ID: HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal It's Time to Reconfigure the United States by Mike Thompson Posted Nov 3, 2004 [From the author: This is an essay I've been working on for the past several weeks, updated moments ago with what appears to be Bush's final number of victory states (31) once the nonsense of provisional votes in Ohio is overcome. As an admitted "modest proposal" (a la Swift's satiric story of the same name), it is nevertheless serious in pointing out the cancer that continues to threaten our body politic.] Branded unconstitutional by President Abraham Lincoln, the South's secession from the American Union ultimately sparked "The Civil War" (a name that was rejected by Southerners, who correctly called it "The War Between the States," for the South never sought to 1] seize the central government or 2] rule the other side, two requisites for a civil war). No state may leave the Union without the other states' approval, according to Lincoln's doctrine--an assertion that ignores the Declaration of Independence, which was the vital basis for all 13 American colonies' unilateral secession from the British Union eight decades earlier. Lincoln's grotesque legal argument also disregards a state's inherent right of secession which many scholars believe is found in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Meantime, America has become just as divided as it was a century and a half ago, when it writhed in Brother-vs.-Brother War. Instead of wedge issues like slavery, federal subsidies for regional business, and high tariffs, society today is sundered by profound, insoluble Culture War conflicts (such as abortion and gay marriage), and debate about our role abroad (shall we remain the world's leader, or become an unprincipled chump for the cabal of globalist sybarites who play endless word-games inside the United Nations and European Union sanctuaries?). For many decades, conservative citizens and like-minded political leaders (starting with President Calvin Coolidge) have been denigrated by the vilest of lies and characterizations from hordes of liberals who now won't even admit that they are liberals--because the word connotes such moral stink and political silliness. As a class, liberals no longer are merely the vigorous opponents of the Right; they are spiteful enemies of civilization's core decency and traditions. Defamation, never envisioned by our Founding Fathers as being protected by the First Amendment, flourishes and passes today for acceptable political discourse. Movies, magazines, newspapers, radio/TV programs, plays, concerts, public schools, colleges, and most other public vehicles openly traffic in slander and libel. Hollywood salivated over the idea of placing another golden Oscar into Michael Moore'sfat hands, for his Fahrenheit 9/11 jeremiad, the most bogus, deceitful film documentary since Herr Hitler and Herr Goebbels gave propaganda a bad name. When they tire of showering conservative victims with ideological mud, liberals promote the only other subjects with which they feel conversationally comfortable: Obscenity and sexual perversion. It's as if the genes of liberals have rendered them immune to all forms of filth. As a final insult, liberal lawyers and judges have become locusts of the Left, conspiring to destroy democracy itself by excreting statutes and courtroom tactics that fertilize electoral fraud and sprout fields of vandals who will cast undeserved and copious ballots on Election Day. The truth is, America is not just broken--it is becoming irreparable. If you believe that recent years of uncivil behavior are burdensome, imagine the likelihood of a future in which all bizarre acts are the norm, and a government-booted foot stands permanently on your face. That is why the unthinkable must become thinkable. If the so-called "Red States" (those that voted for George W. Bush) cannot be respected or at least tolerated by the "Blue States" (those that voted for Al Gore and John Kerry), then the most disparate of them must live apart--not by secession of the former (a majority), but by expulsion of the latter. Here is how to do it. Having been amended only 17 times since 10 vital amendments (the Bill of Rights) were added at the republic's inception, the U.S. Constitution is not easily changed, primarily because so many states (75%, now 38 of 50) must agree. Yet, there are 38 states today that may be inclined to adopt, let us call it, a "Declaration of Expulsion," that is, a specific constitutional amendment to kick out the systemically troublesome states and those trending rapidly toward anti-American, if not outright subversive, behavior. The 12 states that must go: California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware. Only the remaining 38 states would retain the name, "United States of America." The 12 expelled mobs could call themselves the "Dirty Dozen," or individually keep their identity and go their separate ways, probably straight to Hell. A difficult-to-pass constitutional amendment, however, is not necessary. There is an equally lawful route that mercifully would be both easier and faster. Inasmuch as Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution specifies that "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union," it is reasonable that the same congressional majority may expel a state from the Union. Is there, after all, any human organization in existence (including a family or law firm) that may not disown, disinherit, ostracize, alienate or expel diabolical members? Whether the nation is purged of these 12 states via the Constitution or statute, the process of elimination must begin now, for the need of societal detoxification has waxed so overwhelmingly clear. Examine the "Mostly Mainstream 38" and "Fringe 12." Of the 50 states, Bush won 30 in the 2000 presidential election against Gore, and 31 in 2004 against Kerry. More dramatic is the huge disparity among counties. Of 3,112 counties nationwide, Bush in 2000, for example, won 2,434, a crushing 78% majority. (In the counties composing "Bush USA" live approximately 150 million persons; in the 678 of "Gore/Kerry USA," 140 million.) Gore/Kerry denizens are concentrated in the metropolises of the East and West Coasts and those big cities on the Great Lakes or Mississippi River. Other significant pockets of ultraliberal extremists may be found in intellectually incestuous college towns and pro-big-government state capitals, along the estranged and overwhelmed Mexican border, and in Dixie's welfare-addicted Cotton Belt. The demographics revealed by the two most recent presidential elections are radically different and have resulted in "Two Americas" (but not the simplistic "Two Americas" [one rich, one poor] envisioned by Kerry'sMarxist-tongued running mate, John Edwards): * BUSH USA is predominantly white; devoutly Christian (mostly Protestant); openly, vigorously heterosexual; an open land of single-family homes and ranches; economically sound (except for a few farms), but not drunk with cyberworld business development, and mainly English-speaking, with a predilection for respectfully uttering "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir." * GORE/KERRY USA is ethnically diverse; multi-religious, irreligious or nastily antireligious; more sexually liberated (if not in actual practice, certainly in attitude); awash with condo canyons and other high-end real estate bordered by sprawling, squalid public housing or neglected private homes, decidedly short of middle-class neighborhoods; both high tech and oddly primitive in its commerce; very artsy, and Babelesque, with abnormally loud speakers. Bush USA also is far safer, its murder rate being about 16% of the homicidal binge that plagues Gore/Kerry USA--2.1 per 100,000 residents, compared with 13.2 per 100,000 (from a study by Professor Joseph Olson, Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota). A downsized, post-expulsion United States still would be geographically big enough (and personally generous enough) to welcome millions of authentic refugees from the ousted former states, real Americans who crave lower taxes, smaller government, safer neighborhoods, more secure borders, greater moral leadership, and all the other aspects of a markedly better society-- one that spawns harmony, not cacophony; excellence, not dependence; justice, not histrionics; education, not brainwashing; enterprise, not welfare, and Godliness, not devilishness. As for the dozen ex-American states, they could always petition the UN and EU for foreign aid. Moreover, with any good luck (or bon chance), socialist Canada would annex our jettisoned territory, eh? Still Relevant After All These Years Language of the 1776 Declaration of Independence that rings true today for expulsion: When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another . . . Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness . . . Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes . . . but when a long train of abuses . . . evinces a design to reduce them [the people] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Language of Barry Goldwater, 1964 Republican presidential nominee that also rings true: Sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the eastern seaboard and let it float out to sea. ---------- Copyright ) 2004 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.? -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From roy at rant-central.com Wed Nov 3 21:20:05 2004 From: roy at rant-central.com (Roy M. Silvernail) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 00:20:05 -0500 Subject: Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1099545605.29415.5.camel@mesmer.rant-central.com> On Wed, 2004-11-03 at 23:30 -0500, R.A. Hettinga wrote: > > > HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 > > Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal > It's Time to Reconfigure the United States Chuckle-worthy, if not outright funny. Interestingly, I could see a liberal making exactly the same case, but without the ad hominem attacks. -- Roy M. Silvernail is roy at rant-central.com, and you're not "It's just this little chromium switch, here." - TFS SpamAssassin->procmail->/dev/null->bliss http://www.rant-central.com From chris.kuethe at gmail.com Thu Nov 4 01:00:37 2004 From: chris.kuethe at gmail.com (Chris Kuethe) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 02:00:37 -0700 Subject: campus network admins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <91981b3e041104010041e50646@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 04 Nov 2004 02:34:46 -0500, cypher at tediouspath.com wrote: > > I recently violated the network user agreement (they packet-sniffed and > got the username/password for my FTP server and didn't like what I was > sharing with myself) and was informed by the admin that I am now 'under > observation' and that they "hope I don't like privacy". Considering > this admin was an NSA employee, I tend to take that threat a little > seriously. Two questions: Yes, it's not wise to mock the people who busted you to their faces. Scheming requires more subtlety. Kinda like doing a big smoky burnout and leaving a hundred feet of rubber on the road in front of the cop who just gave you a speeding ticket is a bad idea. > 1) I'm assuming they can legally look at anything that comes in or out > of my computer, but is that the case? Can they look at my computer > itself, or take me off the network for the private contents of my > computer? Read the agreement and see. Are you doing something illegal? Are you doing something that exposes the network owners to risk of some sort? Is it your personal hardware or was it provided to you by the network owners. Was there a clause in your terms of service that says the network owners can monitor/audit use, yadda yadda yadda...? Depending on the perceived severity of the infraction, your local security or police officers may be coming to pay a visit and impound your machine. Depending on which political backwater or fascist/EpithetOfChoice regime you live under, they could very well be doing you a favor. Or they could be covering their butts. Whatever - you got the short end of the stick. > 2) Is there some sort of service I can use to have everything I do on the > network encrypted, such as a tunneling service to the internet? In other words "I did something that got me in trouble, I know what I'm doing is wrong, or at least if I do it again, I'll get in more trouble. Please help me to do these bad things and stay out of trouble." Be honest. It's OK to say yes. Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: SSH tunnels, IPSec tunnels, ssl-ized protocols, mixmasters, freenets, onion routers, and buying your own network connection from a 3rd party are all valid options. I'm sure that if you google for things like internet privacy service, the likes of anonymizer (just the first one that came to mind) will turn up. There are plenty of very low cost solutions if you're willing to try stuff that may break your machine for a while causing you to learn stuff the hard way. :) If there's stuff I shouldn't be doing at work (like consulting), well, that's what my home net is for. Perhaps you might want to carefully consider why your administration doesn't want you doing stuff with their network in light of what it costs to have their class of network activity. Now let's run that kind of pipe to your house, and bridge in an open wireless access point. I bet it wouldn't make you very happy to find other people abusing your network connection. Pretend you've been downloading 5 gigs of movies a day over cleartext bittorrent. You get busted, so rather than not doing that, you switch to an encrypted protocol, but continue to generate 5 gigs a day with your computer, and you're still talking to a similar bunch of hosts. Traffic analysis says we suspect you of being up to your old tricks. In this case one technical countermeasure does not help because the problem is higher up the stack... at the chair-to-keyboard interface layer. This may be a bit vague - no idea who you are or where you live, so I am generalizing. Simple truths: You have pissed off The Man - assume for the next little while that he's watching (and is seeing this). There are certain technologies available which may help you, but consider the behavioural, economic, legal and political factors as well. -- GDB has a 'break' feature; why doesn't it have 'fix' too? From isn at c4i.org Thu Nov 4 00:13:44 2004 From: isn at c4i.org (InfoSec News) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 02:13:44 -0600 (CST) Subject: [ISN] Online payment firm in DDoS drama Message-ID: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/03/protx_ddos_attack/ By John Leyden 3rd November 2004 Online payments processing firm Protx is continuing to fight a sustained internet attack which has severely impacting its services for the fourth successive day. Since Sunday (31 October), Protx's systems have been reduced to a crawl because of a malicious DDoS attack. Although Protx felt it was on top of the problem by Monday (1 November) the attack once again intensified, prompting the company to draft in heavy duty DDoS defences which it hopes will finally thwart the assault. In a statement, Mat Peck, chief technical officer, Protx said: "Earlier today [1 November] the parties responsible for the Distributed Denial of Service attack on our systems stepped up their assault, this time pushing our systems beyond their capacity to cope. A large number of compromised machines from a wide range of spoofed IP addresses have been attacking our site in a varied and well structured manner. We have been working all day with Globix, our ISP, to implement a specific DDoS solution which can burst up to 1Gb connectivity during periods of peak load whilst also analysing and killing traffic generated by zombie machine on the Net." "We have migrated the WWW site across to this system first to check the functionality and now that's working, we will be moving the payment servers in the next few hours. This new service, whilst expensive, still mainly developmental and bleeding edge, should enable us to continue to process transactions even under DDoS attacks ten times the size we've seen so far. Future attacks will be dealt with in a matter of minutes instead of hours (or days as many victims of such attacks have found). We're continuing to work closely with the National High Tech Crimes Unit (NHTCU) to bring the perpetrators to task," he added. On 2 November Globix said it was also beefing up the hardware used by its systems in the process of moving across to a new platform. "Whilst all the payment services are available, some of the auxiliary services will not be available until tomorrow," Peck wrote in an update. However Register readers report problems processing payments through the service today. "Thousands of small transactional websites, like mine, have been affected," Reg reader Bruce Stidston tells us. At the time of writing Protx's website was unavailable but you can get an insight into what's going on through Google's cache of the firm's status page. _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From cypher at tediouspath.com Wed Nov 3 23:34:46 2004 From: cypher at tediouspath.com (cypher at tediouspath.com) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 02:34:46 -0500 Subject: campus network admins Message-ID: I recently violated the network user agreement (they packet-sniffed and got the username/password for my FTP server and didn't like what I was sharing with myself) and was informed by the admin that I am now 'under observation' and that they "hope I don't like privacy". Considering this admin was an NSA employee, I tend to take that threat a little seriously. Two questions: 1) I'm assuming they can legally look at anything that comes in or out of my computer, but is that the case? Can they look at my computer itself, or take me off the network for the private contents of my computer? 2) Is there some sort of service I can use to have everything I do on the network encrypted, such as a tunneling service to the internet? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This message was sent from The Tedious Path Are you ready to travel The Tedious Path? http://www.tediouspath.com http://forum.tediouspath.com From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 04:35:18 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 07:35:18 -0500 Subject: [ISN] Online payment firm in DDoS drama Message-ID: --- begin forwarded text From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 04:48:33 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 07:48:33 -0500 Subject: In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down Message-ID: The Wall Street Journal November 4, 2004 BOOKS In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down By NED CRABB November 4, 2004; Page D10 The opening slaughter of what came to be known as the Hundred Years' War took place on Aug. 26, 1346, near the village of Crecy in northern France. There King Philip VI's French army bore down on a much smaller English force commanded by Edward III. What happened in the ensuing few hours still lives, in the French national consciousness, as one of the most painful blots on the proud escutcheon of France. As described in Hugh D.H. Soar's "The Crooked Stick" (Westholme Yardley, 241 pages, $24.95), a fascinating study of a forgotten weapon, King Philip's shining knights, encased in magnificent armor and thundering toward the enemy on huge war horses, were practically annihilated by an enormous black cloud of thousands of arrows that rose from the English lines and descended with murderous effect. These were not the sort of sporting arrows skillfully shot toward gayly colored targets by Victorian archery societies (charmingly described by Mr. Soar in later chapters) but heavy "bodkin pointed battle shafts" that went through the armor of man and horse. And the black cloud wasn't just one surge, it kept coming and coming, arching high over the battlefield, as each of the 6,000 archers released an average three or four arrows a minute. For centuries the longbow dominated battle, affecting the fates of nations. Royal blood soaked the ground, and with frightening suddenness King Philip's now much reduced 27,000-man army was in desperate retreat from Edward's 9,000 Englishmen. Sixty-nine years later, at Agincourt, similar clouds of battle shafts released by the archers in Henry V's small, wet, hungry and sick army devastated a French army so badly that scores of ancient aristocratic lineages were ended in a few hours of battle. The English longbowman had emerged from centuries of hunting in the dark forests of his native land and into the glare of battle to end the dominance of the mounted knight. The knight and his "destrier" horse, also armored, were the medieval equivalent of an Abrams tank, owning the battlefield for centuries and vulnerable only to other knights and crossbowmen (who had to stop and rewind their weapons) at close range. And now here was this peasant fellow in his hooded cloth shirt, leather jerkin (close-fitting, sleeveless jacket), soft leather boots and crude helmet bringing him down into the mud. Whence came this man, with a great bow taller than himself? As Mr. Soar fascinatingly elucidates, he and his weapon have a long history. Over centuries, the English archer had developed an extra-long bow hewn from the yew tree. Many types of wood possessed the essential power-making qualities of tension and compression, but yew was by far the best. "Though notoriously difficult to work with because of its often tortuous grain," Mr. Soar writes, "yew has an elasticity superior to all other timber." Yew gave the warbow tremendous thrust, sending feathered (fletched) shafts 250 yards, compared with the shorter handbow's 50 or so and the crossbow's 100. To this day, as Mr. Soar shows later when he describes longbow archery's evolution into a garden-party pastime and Olympic sport, no superior wood has been discovered. Examining the longbow's heritage, Mr. Soar takes us to Paleolithic and Neolithic prehistory for a vivid reconstruction of the ancient bowman ancestors of the men who stood at Crecy in 1346. He begins with a typically pithy statement: "Matters were not easy for our early ancestors. It was their fate to be at once both predator and prey. At best, this was an unattractive lifestyle and one fraught with inevitable uncertainty and danger." To improve the odds, early man devised the pointed stick with which to skewer his food and his enemies. From the pointed stick came the spear with its sharp stone point, and then the need to give it propulsion other than by simply throwing it -- and thus, inevitably, the crooked stick with its primitive string of plaited grass, sinew or hemp. Eventually the bow was strengthened by the use of horn on the tips, where the string was either tied or slipped into a groove at the shaft, and sinew and hemp gave way to linen thread or silk, a far more elastic means of projecting arrows. The longbow's supremacy lasted about two centuries, shifting the balance of power mostly to England, whose kings issued royal decrees banning certain "idle" games and demanding that all able-bodied young men in every village and town diligently practice archery. The English were especially deft at instituting battlefield discipline for archers, training them to move in formation on command, usually by horn signals. The French never equaled them in either training longbow archers or in disciplining them in battlefield tactics. Some things never change. It was not until the advent of gunpowder and artillery, with a much longer range and much greater killing power, that the longbow lost its decisive role. It remained a residual weapon in the Tudor era, especially for aristocratic gentleman to demonstrate their athletic prowess at games and tournaments. (King Henry VIII was particularly fond of the longbow, and there are drawings of him shooting.) But on the battlefield, the bow could not compete with the gun, which from the first exceeded the arrow's velocity if not its precision. By the beginning of the 17th century, however, cannons and muskets had found a deadly range and accuracy. The battle of Pinkie Cleugh, in 1547, the last battle to be fought between the Scottish and English royal armies, was also the "last occasion," notes Mr. Soar, "when [the longbow] was used tactically en masse." The Scots suffered defeat, with 15,000 men slain. Mr. Crabb is the Journal's letters editor. URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109953591903164550,00.html Copyright 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 04:58:23 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 07:58:23 -0500 Subject: Bush and a Butterfly Message-ID: The Wall Street Journal November 4, 2004 COMMENTARY Bush and a Butterfly By MICHIO KAKU November 4, 2004; Page A14 Another squeaker -- almost. Once again, the presidential election seemed to teeter -- if only briefly -- on a razor's edge. But for scientists, even political events can raise scientific questions. Here, one is tempted to ask something that no one raised on Fox News or CNN: What is the smallest event necessary to tip the balance? Meteorologists sometimes talk about the butterfly effect, that even the flapping of a butterfly's wings might, at critical junctures, tip a storm cloud into unleashing a downpour. But quantum physicists ask a deeper question: Can even tiny quantum events tip a presidential election? If so, then perhaps the entire universe itself splits in half. In one universe, there is rejoicing in the White House. In another quantum universe, there is rejoicing in the streets of Paris and Berlin. Both would be possible universes. * * * According to the quantum theory, which rules the sub-atomic world, one can only calculate probabilities, not definite outcomes. According to the "many worlds" quantum theory, the universe splits in half each time a quantum event takes place, creating a cascading "multiverse" of possible universes. Even the smallest quantum event (like the impact of a cosmic ray) can have catastrophic consequences. What might have happened if a cosmic ray went through the womb of Hitler's mother. She might have suffered a miscarriage, and Hitler would never have been born. Imagine a world in which Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Gandhi, Churchill -- or even George W. Bush -- were never born due to a tiny quantum event. The mind is sent swimming by the possibilities. (We physicists like to tell the story of a Russian physicist who, witnessing the decadence of Las Vegas for the first time, put all his money on the first bet. When told what a foolish strategy that was, he replied, "Yes, but in one quantum universe, I shall be rich beyond imagination!") But since we cannot make contact with these parallel universes it might appear that this is just idle talk. Instead of debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, it seems as if physicists are asking how many universes can spin off from one quantum event. But there is one very important practical application: the future of computers and the wealth of nations. By 2020, Silicon Valley may become a Rust Belt. Moore's law will finally collapse, causing massive disruption in the world's economy. All things must pass, even the miniaturization of computer chips, the engine of the world's prosperity. Why? The Pentium chip today is so compact that it has a layer only about 20 atoms across. By 2020, this layer might become only five atoms across, in which case the Uncertainty Principle takes over, you don't know where the electrons are any more, and the chip short-circuits. Silicon chips are useless at the atomic level. Instead, physicists are frantically investigating "quantum computers," which compute on individual atoms. Spinning atoms are like tops, and their axis can be aligned up, down, or to any angle in between. Bits (like 0s and 1s) are replaced by "qubits" (quantum bits, which can be 0, 1, and anything in between). What makes quantum computers so powerful is that they compute not just in our universe, but in other quantum universes simultaneously. Even the CIA is interested in quantum computers, since they are so incredibly powerful they might be able to crack any known code. Quantum computers are still many decades away. But eventually, the nation which dominates the world economy may be the one which masters the nano world of atomic, and quantum computing. Then quantum events, instead of being the idle talk of quantum philosophers, will be the source of the world's wealth. The Silicon Age is coming to a close. Welcome to the Quantum Age, where even button-down bankers will have to learn the mysteries of the multiverse. Not to mention those who do the exit polls at American presidential elections! Mr. Kaku, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City University of New York, is the author of "Parallel Worlds," forthcoming in January from Doubleday. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jya at pipeline.com Thu Nov 4 08:02:05 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 08:02:05 -0800 Subject: Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal In-Reply-To: <1099545605.29415.5.camel@mesmer.rant-central.com> References: Message-ID: A map of the expulsion civil war declaration: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/ninjagurl/new_map.jpg From roy at rant-central.com Thu Nov 4 05:31:14 2004 From: roy at rant-central.com (Roy M. Silvernail) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 08:31:14 -0500 Subject: Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418A2F22.3010403@rant-central.com> John Young wrote: >A map of the expulsion civil war declaration: > > >http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/ninjagurl/new_map.jpg > > There seems to be an assumption that Alaska will be included in Jesusland. Whoever is advancing this theory clearly never lived in Alaska (or if they did, only lived in Anchorage, which isn't *really* Alaska). -- Roy M. Silvernail is roy at rant-central.com, and you're not "It's just this little chromium switch, here." - TFS SpamAssassin->procmail->/dev/null->bliss http://www.rant-central.com From pcapelli at gmail.com Thu Nov 4 07:20:32 2004 From: pcapelli at gmail.com (Pete Capelli) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 10:20:32 -0500 Subject: Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal In-Reply-To: <1099545605.29415.5.camel@mesmer.rant-central.com> References: <1099545605.29415.5.camel@mesmer.rant-central.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 04 Nov 2004 00:20:05 -0500, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: > Chuckle-worthy, if not outright funny. Interestingly, I could see a > liberal making exactly the same case, but without the ad hominem > attacks. Like calling Bush an idiot? That door swings both ways. -- Pete Capelli pcapelli at ieee.org http://www.capelli.org PGP Key ID:0x829263B6 "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 07:47:22 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 10:47:22 -0500 Subject: Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal In-Reply-To: <418A2F22.3010403@rant-central.com> References: <418A2F22.3010403@rant-central.com> Message-ID: At 8:31 AM -0500 11/4/04, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: >There seems to be an assumption that Alaska will be included in >Jesusland. Whoever is advancing this theory clearly never lived in >Alaska (or if they did, only lived in Anchorage, which isn't *really* >Alaska). Ahhh... Los Anchorage. It's just most of the people there, of course. Cheers, RAH Who went to Fairview and Roger's Park elementary, and Wendler Jr. Hi., while his old man built 1500sf tract houses on spec, and then an apartment complex or two, before he retired to Hillsboro, NM, pop 19. Anchorage was too *big*, you see... -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 07:54:29 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 10:54:29 -0500 Subject: Gigabit Ethernet board for TCP/IP security Message-ID: Thursday 4 November 2004 Gigabit Ethernet board for TCP/IP security SDC Systems offers a range of Gigabit Ethernet single board computers designed by ADI Engineering and based on Intel XScale and Intel IXA technologies. Designed for network security devices such as TCP/IP Offload Engines (TOE), firewalls, VPN equipment, IPSec and SSL accelerators, intrusion detection, and cryptography equipment, Shadwell supports line wire speed in both single and dual port versions. The board features an Intel 80200 processor, running at 733MHz, 256MB SDRAM (128Mbyte in the single mode), Intel 82545/82546 fourth-generation GbE MAC/PHY, and Intel 21555 PCI-PCI bridge. The board is implemented in a half size PCI form factor, and only dissipates 6W of power in the single port version. A Virtex-II FPGA can be used to offload of time-critical tasks including cryptography, firewall filtering, and virus scanning. www.sdcsystems.com Tel: 01462 473928 -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From mfidelman at ntcorp.com Thu Nov 4 08:14:58 2004 From: mfidelman at ntcorp.com (mfidelman at ntcorp.com) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:14:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I expect quite a few of us in the Northeast would be happy to join with Canada. It might be problematic that DC went blue :-) On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: > > > HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 > > Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal > It's Time to Reconfigure the United States > > by Mike Thompson > Posted Nov 3, 2004 > [From the author: This is an essay I've been working on for the past > several weeks, updated moments ago with what appears to be Bush's final > number of victory states (31) once the nonsense of provisional votes in > Ohio is overcome. > > As an admitted "modest proposal" (a la Swift's satiric story of the same > name), it is nevertheless serious in pointing out the cancer that continues > to threaten our body politic.] > > Branded unconstitutional by President Abraham Lincoln, the South's > secession from the American Union ultimately sparked "The Civil War" (a > name that was rejected by Southerners, who correctly called it "The War > Between the States," for the South never sought to 1] seize the central > government or 2] rule the other side, two requisites for a civil war). > > No state may leave the Union without the other states' approval, according > to Lincoln's doctrine--an assertion that ignores the Declaration of > Independence, which was the vital basis for all 13 American colonies' > unilateral secession from the British Union eight decades earlier. > Lincoln's grotesque legal argument also disregards a state's inherent right > of secession which many scholars believe is found in the Ninth and Tenth > Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. > > Meantime, America has become just as divided as it was a century and a > half ago, when it writhed in Brother-vs.-Brother War. Instead of wedge > issues like slavery, federal subsidies for regional business, and high > tariffs, society today is sundered by profound, insoluble Culture War > conflicts (such as abortion and gay marriage), and debate about our role > abroad (shall we remain the world's leader, or become an unprincipled chump > for the cabal of globalist sybarites who play endless word-games inside the > United Nations and European Union sanctuaries?). > > For many decades, conservative citizens and like-minded political leaders > (starting with President Calvin Coolidge) have been denigrated by the > vilest of lies and characterizations from hordes of liberals who now won't > even admit that they are liberals--because the word connotes such moral > stink and political silliness. As a class, liberals no longer are merely > the vigorous opponents of the Right; they are spiteful enemies of > civilization's core decency and traditions. > > Defamation, never envisioned by our Founding Fathers as being protected by > the First Amendment, flourishes and passes today for acceptable political > discourse. Movies, magazines, newspapers, radio/TV programs, plays, > concerts, public schools, colleges, and most other public vehicles openly > traffic in slander and libel. Hollywood salivated over the idea of placing > another golden Oscar into Michael Moore'sfat hands, for his Fahrenheit 9/11 > jeremiad, the most bogus, deceitful film documentary since Herr Hitler and > Herr Goebbels gave propaganda a bad name. > > When they tire of showering conservative victims with ideological mud, > liberals promote the only other subjects with which they feel > conversationally comfortable: Obscenity and sexual perversion. It's as if > the genes of liberals have rendered them immune to all forms of filth. > > As a final insult, liberal lawyers and judges have become locusts of the > Left, conspiring to destroy democracy itself by excreting statutes and > courtroom tactics that fertilize electoral fraud and sprout fields of > vandals who will cast undeserved and copious ballots on Election Day. > > The truth is, America is not just broken--it is becoming irreparable. If > you believe that recent years of uncivil behavior are burdensome, imagine > the likelihood of a future in which all bizarre acts are the norm, and a > government-booted foot stands permanently on your face. > > That is why the unthinkable must become thinkable. If the so-called "Red > States" (those that voted for George W. Bush) cannot be respected or at > least tolerated by the "Blue States" (those that voted for Al Gore and John > Kerry), then the most disparate of them must live apart--not by secession > of the former (a majority), but by expulsion of the latter. Here is how to > do it. > > Having been amended only 17 times since 10 vital amendments (the Bill of > Rights) were added at the republic's inception, the U.S. Constitution is > not easily changed, primarily because so many states (75%, now 38 of 50) > must agree. Yet, there are 38 states today that may be inclined to adopt, > let us call it, a "Declaration of Expulsion," that is, a specific > constitutional amendment to kick out the systemically troublesome states > and those trending rapidly toward anti-American, if not outright > subversive, behavior. The 12 states that must go: California, Illinois, New > York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode > Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware. Only the remaining 38 states > would retain the name, "United States of America." The 12 expelled mobs > could call themselves the "Dirty Dozen," or individually keep their > identity and go their separate ways, probably straight to Hell. > > A difficult-to-pass constitutional amendment, however, is not necessary. > There is an equally lawful route that mercifully would be both easier and > faster. Inasmuch as Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution specifies > that "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union," it is > reasonable that the same congressional majority may expel a state from the > Union. Is there, after all, any human organization in existence (including > a family or law firm) that may not disown, disinherit, ostracize, alienate > or expel diabolical members? Whether the nation is purged of these 12 > states via the Constitution or statute, the process of elimination must > begin now, for the need of societal detoxification has waxed so > overwhelmingly clear. > > Examine the "Mostly Mainstream 38" and "Fringe 12." Of the 50 states, Bush > won 30 in the 2000 presidential election against Gore, and 31 in 2004 > against Kerry. More dramatic is the huge disparity among counties. Of 3,112 > counties nationwide, Bush in 2000, for example, won 2,434, a crushing 78% > majority. (In the counties composing "Bush USA" live approximately 150 > million persons; in the 678 of "Gore/Kerry USA," 140 million.) Gore/Kerry > denizens are concentrated in the metropolises of the East and West Coasts > and those big cities on the Great Lakes or Mississippi River. Other > significant pockets of ultraliberal extremists may be found in > intellectually incestuous college towns and pro-big-government state > capitals, along the estranged and overwhelmed Mexican border, and in > Dixie's welfare-addicted Cotton Belt. > > The demographics revealed by the two most recent presidential elections > are radically different and have resulted in "Two Americas" (but not the > simplistic "Two Americas" [one rich, one poor] envisioned by > Kerry'sMarxist-tongued running mate, John Edwards): > * BUSH USA is predominantly white; devoutly Christian (mostly > Protestant); openly, vigorously heterosexual; an open land of single-family > homes and ranches; economically sound (except for a few farms), but not > drunk with cyberworld business development, and mainly English-speaking, > with a predilection for respectfully uttering "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir." > > > > * GORE/KERRY USA is ethnically diverse; multi-religious, > irreligious or nastily antireligious; more sexually liberated (if not in > actual practice, certainly in attitude); awash with condo canyons and other > high-end real estate bordered by sprawling, squalid public housing or > neglected private homes, decidedly short of middle-class neighborhoods; > both high tech and oddly primitive in its commerce; very artsy, and > Babelesque, with abnormally loud speakers. > Bush USA also is far safer, its murder rate being about 16% of the > homicidal binge that plagues Gore/Kerry USA--2.1 per 100,000 residents, > compared with 13.2 per 100,000 (from a study by Professor Joseph Olson, > Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota). > > A downsized, post-expulsion United States still would be geographically > big enough (and personally generous enough) to welcome millions of > authentic refugees from the ousted former states, real Americans who crave > lower taxes, smaller government, safer neighborhoods, more secure borders, > greater moral leadership, and all the other aspects of a markedly better > society-- one that spawns harmony, not cacophony; excellence, not > dependence; justice, not histrionics; education, not brainwashing; > enterprise, not welfare, and Godliness, not devilishness. As for the dozen > ex-American states, they could always petition the UN and EU for foreign > aid. Moreover, with any good luck (or bon chance), socialist Canada would > annex our jettisoned territory, eh? > > > Still Relevant After All These Years > > Language of the 1776 Declaration of Independence that rings true today for > expulsion: > > When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to > dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another . . . > > > Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the > consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes > destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to > abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such > principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem > most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness . . . > > > Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not > be changed for light and transient causes . . . but when a long train of > abuses . . . evinces a design to reduce them [the people] under absolute > Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such > Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. > > Language of Barry Goldwater, 1964 Republican presidential nominee that > also rings true: > > > Sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off > the eastern seaboard and let it float out to sea. > > > ---------- > > > Copyright ) 2004 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.? > > -- From nobody at dizum.com Thu Nov 4 04:40:04 2004 From: nobody at dizum.com (Nomen Nescio) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 13:40:04 +0100 (CET) Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 James A. Donald: > You are quite right, it is unjust that people like Bin Laden are so > immensely rich with oil wealth. To remedy this problem, Bush > should confiscate the Middle Eastern oil reserves. > > You are using stale old communist rhetoric - but today's terrorists > no longer not even pretend to fight on behalf of the poor and > oppressed. This was quite lame and doesn't really deserve a response. To label any argument that points out the obvious circumstance that injustice feeds hatred as communist propaganda, is really only ridiculous, even if it's also dangerously incompetent and as such no real laughing matter. Why do you mention Bin Laden anyway? There are thousands of bigger and smaller groups around the world (they exists in every country more or less) that we'd label as terrorists in the western part of the world. You think every one of these hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of recruits and followers are millionaires? Fantastically lame comment to a real and important issue. Should we take you seriously when you write these childish rants? I don't know what to fear the most, the dangerous ignorance of those of your kind or what dictatorial rulers may accomplish using your ignorant kind as followers who do not question the truths from the authorities. Hitler did it in the 30's election where some 37% voted for the nazis, in a democratic multi-party election I might add. Some of the ingrediences present then in Hitler's rhetoric are also present today in Bush's rhetoric, even though I don't mean to make the comparison . We just cannot afford to be this naive. I can't help thinking about the fact that we usually portray Americans as a religious and church going people. Perhaps some 25% attend church on a somewhat regular basis. To make matters worse those people seem to vote for Bush(?). One can't help wonder if they're literate and if they actually read the bible and it's message of love, understanding, forgiveness and compassion for their fellow man. May god bless the world, we may need it. Johnny Doelittle Men willingly believe what they wish. (Julius Caesar) There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity. (von Goethe) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Tom Ridge Special v1.01 iQA/AwUBQYoO4jVaKWz2Ji/mEQKzWACfTEUN6ENT9/kbzMEOQVuvM4txtpIAnRI2 pU5RbBMeBggUCWf2ZW4rBQYG =EiIW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From ocorrain at yahoo.com Thu Nov 4 06:11:39 2004 From: ocorrain at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Tiarn=E1n_=D3_Corr=E1in?=) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 14:11:39 +0000 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <41892D53.6050207@echeque.com> (James A. Donald's message of "Wed, 03 Nov 2004 11:11:15 -0800") References: <41892D53.6050207@echeque.com> Message-ID: "James A. Donald" writes: > When it came to the part of the war that was purely a public good, > conquering the German and Japanese homelands, America did indeed bear > almost the whole burden, but when it came to defending Australia > against the Japanese, the Australians bore the major burden, and > similarly for most other battlefields outside of the aggressors' > homelands. Nonsense. The Russians (for example) conquered Hitler's capital, Berlin. And I believe the Russian zone in Germany was larger than any of the others, reflecting the fact that Stalin bore most of entire burden of defeating Germany, uncomfortable as it may be. -- Tiarnan From nobody at dizum.com Thu Nov 4 05:40:05 2004 From: nobody at dizum.com (Nomen Nescio) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 14:40:05 +0100 (CET) Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 R.A. Hettinga: > Are you high, junior? Or is it just your politics that sound so... > sophomoric? > Communism, Fuck Yeah!!! States are People Too!!!! Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. (Euripides) You too. Sad it is. Howcome the Americans became so egocentrical and cynical that anyone who dares to speak up and support compassion for his fellow man automatically is a communist? It's a sincere question, no doubt in my mind that we won't get a sincere answer though. Reading your email actually reminds me of those of Tim May, he also seemed to be full of bigotry and hatred and deeply disliked anyone who were unfortunate enough to be poor. > Our culture -- yours, too, bunky, since I bet you don't shit into a > hole in the floor and pray 5 times a day for, as Hanson > appropriately No I don't shit into a hole, but I can still try to be unbiased and extend a though or two to other people who are not so fortunate as we are to be born in the rich part of the world. > Ah. That's right. I'm not "nuanced" enough. It's too *complicated* > for anyone who didn't take your sophomore (cryptomarxist) "History > Studies" class, or whatever. Please. To me it's enough to at least try to understand and try live by the spirit of the Bible. It's also quite ironical that all those right wing voters actually read communist propaganda in church, since that is the logical conclusion of your arguments made here. > There we go. Wisdom from a thug. How about this thug, instead, kid, > quoted just about as much out of context as you have yours: > > "When the hares made speeches in the assembly and demanded that all > should have equality, the lions replied, "Where are your claws and > teeth?" -- attributed to Antisthenes in Aristotle, 'Politics', > 3.7.2 > > Oh. That's right. One shouldn't read Aristotle. He was a White Male > Oppressor... You like quotes, ok here I have a small collection for you, maybe one or two of them qualifies as white oppressors too, I don't know. Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. (Nietzsche) An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. (Thomas Jefferson) I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts. (Abraham Lincoln) It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. (Voltaire) What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? (Mahatma Gandhi) Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. (Martin Luther King) > Sheesh. When will September ever end? In my calendar it's November already, I don't know about yours. Johnny Doelittle -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Tom Ridge Special v1.01 iQA/AwUBQYoOvDVaKWz2Ji/mEQLUvgCfZJiR4Nmtvpe00RHmsfJujf1opfYAn289 PIgwc3xyE+/RolLAFBqAc6Ks =cwYX -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From hal at finney.org Thu Nov 4 15:01:15 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:01:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: <20041104230115.6A1CD57E2A@finney.org> "Tyler Durden" writes: > So my newbie-style question is, is there an eGold that can be verified, but > not accessed, until a 'release' code is sent? > > In other words, say I'm buying some hacker-ed code and pay in egold. I don't > want them to be able to 'cash' the gold until I have the code. Meanwhile, > they will want to see that the gold is at least "there", even if they can't > cash it yet. > > Is there a way to send a 'release' to an eGold (or other) payment? Better > yet, a double simultaneous release feature makes thing even more > interesting. I've been thinking about how to do this kind of thing with ecash. One project I'm hoping to work on next year is a P2P gambling game (like poker or something) using my rpow.net which is a sort of play-money ecash. You'd like to be able to do bets and have some kind of reasonable assurance that the other guy would pay up if he loses. In the case of your problem there is the issue of whether the source code you are buying is legitimate. Only once you have inspected it and satisfied yourself that it will suit your needs would you be willing to pay. But attaining that assurance will require examing the code in such detail that maybe you will decide that you don't need to pay. You could imagine a trusted third party who would inspect the code and certify it, saying "the source code with hash XXX appears to be legitimate Cisco source code". Then they could send you the code bit by bit and incrementally show that it matches the specified hash, using a crypto protocol for gradual release of secrets. You could simultaneously do a gradual release of some payment information in the other direction. If you don't have a TTP, one idea for using ecash is Markus Jakobsson's "Ripping Coins for a Fair Exchange". Basically you withdraw ecash from your account and in effect "rip it in half" and give half to the seller. Now he gives you the product and you give him the other half of the coin. The idea is that once you have given him the "ripped" ecash ("torn" would be a better word because ripping means something else today), you are out the value of the cash. You have no more incentive to cheat, as giving him the other half won't cost you anything additional. (Even without ecash, a service like egold could mimic this functionality. You'd create an escrow account with two passwords, one known to each party. Only with both passwords could data be withdrawn from the account. Then the buyer would transfer funds into this account. After receiving the goods, the buyer would send his password to the seller.) The problem is that if the source code you are purchasing is bogus, or if the other side doesn't come through, you're screwed because you've lost the value of the torn cash. The other side doesn't gain anything by this fraud, but they harm you, and if they are malicious that might be enough. And likewise you might be malicious and harm them by refusing to give them your half of the coin even after you have received the goods. Again, this doesn't benefit you, you're still out the money, but maybe you like causing trouble. Another idea along these lines is gradual payment for gradual release of the goods. You pay 10% of the amount and they give you 10% of the source code. You pay another 10% and you get the next 10% of the source, and so on. (Or it could be nonlinear; maybe they give out half the code for free, but the final 10% requires a large payment.) The idea is that you can sample and make sure they do appear to have the real thing with a fairly small investment. If there is some mechanism for the seller to have a reputation (like Advogato's perhaps, with some spoofing immunity) then the problem is easier; the seller won't want to screw buyers because it hurts his rep. In that case it may be reasonable to ask the buyer to pay in advance, perhaps using the partial payment system just discussed. These various ideas all have tradeoffs, and in general this kind of problem is hard to solve because of the complexity of what constitutes a successful transaction. A reputation system helps a great deal to resolve the issues, but opens up problems of its own. The betting problem I want to work on is relatively easy because there is no ambiguity about who wins, but even then it is hard to make sure that neither party can maliciously harm the other. Hal F. From ianf at dreamscape.com.au Wed Nov 3 21:10:19 2004 From: ianf at dreamscape.com.au (Ian Farquhar) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 16:10:19 +1100 Subject: "Scan design called portal for hackers" In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.5.32.20041028232133.00867a30@pop.west.cox.net> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20041104160643.072a1458@mail.cia.com.au> At 09:30 PM 2/11/2004, Peter Gutmann wrote: >The JTAG interface is your (that is, the reverse engineer's) friend. This is >why some security devices let you disconnect it using a security-fuse type >mechanism before you ship your product. Of course that only works if (a) the >device allows it, (b) you remember to activate it, and (c) your attacker isn't >sufficiently motivated/funded to use something like microprobing or a FIB >workstation to bypass the disconnect. I've heard comments about using laser scribes (ie. the types which used to be used to program fuse links on nonce-style "serial number" registers) being used to totally disconnect and/or destroy BIST circuitry from the rest of the chip in "sensitive" devices. Of course, this wouldn't prevent a microprobing attack, but it certainly makes sure the security fuse hasn't been forgotten. Ian. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Thu Nov 4 13:58:34 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 16:58:34 -0500 Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: Hum. So my newbie-style question is, is there an eGold that can be verified, but not accessed, until a 'release' code is sent? In other words, say I'm buying some hacker-ed code and pay in egold. I don't want them to be able to 'cash' the gold until I have the code. Meanwhile, they will want to see that the gold is at least "there", even if they can't cash it yet. Is there a way to send a 'release' to an eGold (or other) payment? Better yet, a double simultaneous release feature makes thing even more interesting. -TD >From: "R.A. Hettinga" >To: cryptography at metzdowd.com, cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Your source code, for sale >Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 19:24:43 -0500 > > > > - ADTmag.com > >Your source code, for sale > >By Mike Gunderloy > >Well, maybe not yet. But what does the future hold for those who consider >their source code an important proprietary asset? > >Halloween this year featured more scary stuff than just ghosts and ghouls. >It was also the day (at least in the Pacific time zone) when the Source >Code Club posted their second Newsletter in a public Usenet group. Despite >their innocent-sounding name, the Source Code Club is a group of hackers >who are offering to sell the source to commercial products. Their current >menu of source code for sale looks like this: > * Cisco Pix 6.3.1 - $24,000 > * Enterasys Dragon IDS - $19.200 > * Napster - $12,000 > >They also claim to have the source code for many other packages that they >haven't announced publicly. "If you are requesting something from a Fortune >100 company, there is a good chance that we might already have it, they >say. Now, you might think this business is blatantly illegal, and no doubt >it is. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible. They're posting >their newsletter to Usenet, probably from an Internet cafe somewhere, so >that's not traceable. They'll take orders the same way, and require orders >to be encrypted using their PGP key, which is at least reasonably >unbreakable at the moment. (As of this writing, I don't see any encrypted >messages posted to the newsgroup they use, though). For payment, they're >using e-gold, which claims to protect the anonymity of its account holders. > >Now, it seems reasonably likely that the Source Code Club folks will >eventually get caught; going up against Cisco's resources displays at least >a strong conviction of invulnerability. But even if these guys get caught, >there are deeper issues here. Ten years ago, no one could have dreamed of >trying to set up such a business. Ten years from now, advances in >cryptography, more forms of currency circulating on the Internet, and >improvements in anonymity software are likely to make it impossible to >catch a similar operation. > >What will it mean when hacker groups can in fact do business this way with >impunity? First, it's important to note that the ability to sell wares >anonymously won't necessarily imply the ability to get inventory. Your best >defense against having your own source code leaked is to pay careful >attention to its physical security. These days, if I were developing an >important commercial product, I'd make sure there was no path between my >development or build machines and the public Internet. Hackers can do lots >of things, but they still can't leap over physical disconnections. Second, >I'd use software that prevents temporary storage devices (like USB sticks) >from connecting to the network, and keep CD and DVD burners out of the >development boxes as well. > >It's also worth making sure that your business doesn't depend entirely on >source code. While the intellectual property that goes into making software >is certainly a valuable asset, it shouldn't be your only asset. Think about >ancillary services like training, support, and customization in addition to >simply selling software. > >Finally, note that the Source Code Club business model is based on taking >advantage of people wanting to know what's in the software that they >purchase. About the pix code, they say "Many intelligence >agencies/government organizations will want to know if those 1's and 0's in >the pix image really are doing what was advertised. You must ask yourself >how well you trust the pix images you download to your appliance from >cisco.com." Microsoft (among other companies) has demonstrated how to >remove this particular fear factor from customers: share your source code >under controlled circumstances. That doesn't mean that you need to adapt an >open source model, but when a big customer comes calling, why not walk >their engineers through how things work and let them audit their own areas >of concern? > >Given the shifting landscape of intellectual property, and the threat from >groups such as the Source Code Club, these are matters you need to think >about sooner rather than later. Otherwise you may wake up some morning and >find that your major asset has vanished without your even knowing it was in >danger. > > >Mike Gunderloy, MCSE, MCSD .NET, MCDBA is an independent software >consultant and author working in eastern Washington. He's the editor of >ADT's Developer Central newsletter and author of numerous books and >articles. You can reach him at MikeG1 at larkfarm.com. > >This article originally appeared in the >November 2004 issue of Application Development Trends. > > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 13:59:33 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:59:33 -0500 Subject: File-sharing network thrives beneath the radar Message-ID: Yahoo! Thursday November 4, 3:01 AM LIVEWIRE - File-sharing network thrives beneath the radar By Adam Pasick LONDON (Reuters) - A file-sharing program called BitTorrent has become a behemoth, devouring more than a third of the Internet's bandwidth, and Hollywood's copyright cops are taking notice. For those who know where to look, there's a wealth of content, both legal -- such as hip-hop from the Beastie Boys and video game promos -- and illicit, including a wide range of TV shows, computer games and movies. Average users are taking advantage of the software's ability to cheaply spread files around the Internet. For example, when comedian Jon Stewart made an incendiary appearance on CNN's political talk show "Crossfire," thousands used BitTorrent to share the much-discussed video segment. Even as lawsuits from music companies have driven people away from peer-to-peer programs like KaZaa, BitTorrent has thus far avoided the ire of groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America. But as BitTorrent's popularity grows, the service could become a target for copyright lawsuits. According to British Web analysis firm CacheLogic, BitTorrent accounts for an astounding 35 percent of all the traffic on the Internet -- more than all other peer-to-peer programs combined -- and dwarfs mainstream traffic like Web pages. "I don't think Hollywood is willing to let it slide, but whether they're able to (stop it) is another matter," Bram Cohen, the programmer who created BitTorrent, told Reuters. John Malcolm, director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the MPAA, said that his group is well aware of the vast amounts of copyrighted material being traded via BitTorrent. "It's a very efficient delivery system for large files, and it's being used and abused by a hell of a lot of people," he told Reuters. "We're studying our options, as we do with all new technologies which are abused by people to engage in theft." FOR GOOD OR EVIL BitTorrent, which is available for free on http://bittorrent.com, can be used to distribute legitimate content and to enable copyright infringement on a massive scale. The key is to understand how the software works. Let's say you want to download a copy of this week's episode of "Desperate Housewives." Rather than downloading the actual digital file that contains the show, instead you would download a small file called a "torrent" onto your computer. When you open that file on your computer, BitTorrent searches for other users that have downloaded the same "torrent." BitTorrent's "file-swarming" software breaks the original digital file into fragments, then those fragments are shared between all of the users that have downloaded the "torrent." Then the software stitches together those fragments into a single file that a users can view on their PC. Sites like Slovenia-based Suprnova (http://www.suprnova.org) offer up thousands of different torrents without storing the shows themselves. Suprnova is a treasure trove of movies, television shows, and pirated games and software. Funded by advertising, it is run by a teen-age programmer who goes only by the name Sloncek, who did not respond to an e-mailed interview request. Enabling users to share copyrighted material illicitly may put Suprnova and its users on shaky legal ground. "They're doing something flagrantly illegal, but getting away with it because they're offshore," said Cohen. He is not eager to get into a battle about how his creation is used. "To me, it's all bits," he said. But Cohen has warned that BitTorrent is ill-suited to illegal activities, a view echoed by John Malcolm of MPAA. "People who use these systems and think they're anonymous are mistaken," Malcolm said. Asked if he thought sites like Suprnova were illegal, he said: "That's still an issue we're studying, that reasonable minds can disagree on," he said. GOING LEGIT Meanwhile, BitTorrent is rapidly emerging as the preferred means of distributing large amounts of legitimate content such as versions of the free computer operating system Linux, and these benign uses may give it some legal protection. "Almost any software that makes it easy to swap copyrighted files is ripe for a crackdown BitTorrent's turn at bat will definitely happen," said Harvard University associate law professor Jonathan Zittrain. "At least under U.S. law, it's a bit more difficult to find the makers liable as long as the software is capable of being used for innocent uses, which I think (BitTorrent) surely is." Among the best legitimate sites for movies and music: -- Legal Torrents (http://www.legaltorrents.com/), which includes a wide selection of electronic music. It also has the Wired Magazine Creative Commons CD, which has songs from artists like the Beastie Boys who agreed to release some of their songs under a more permissive copyright that allows free distribution and remixing. -- Torrentocracy (http://torrentocracy.com/torrents/) has videos of the U.S. presidential debates and other political materials. -- File Soup (http://www.filesoup.com) offers open-source software and freeware, music from artists whose labels don't belong to the Recording Industry Association of America trade group, and programs from public television stations like PBS or the BBC. -- Etree (http://bt.etree.org) is for devotees of "trade-friendly" bands like Phish and the Dead, who encourage fans to share live recordings, usually in the form of large files that have been minimally compressed to maintain sound quality. Email this article to your friend - View most popular Prev Story: Web calls may be more popular than thought - survey ( Reuters) Next Story: Net banking fraudsters step up the "phishing" scam ( Reuters) More Technology Stories 7 Time Warner's AOL unit to cut 700 jobs - source ( Reuters) 7 Time Warner's AOL unit to cut 700 jobs - WashPost ( Reuters) -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From bill.stewart at pobox.com Thu Nov 4 18:34:39 2004 From: bill.stewart at pobox.com (Bill Stewart) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 18:34:39 -0800 Subject: Love It or Leave It Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.0.20041104183355.0408ce48@pop.idiom.com> Bob continues to forward entertaining and occasionally insightful articles to the list. From the bluesy side of the fence, Moby wrote: > can someone remind me why secession is not an option at this point? Meanwhile, on the Commie-colored side of the fence, Mike Thompson of HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE took several weeks to write a "modest proposal" to kick the states that didn't get with the program out of the union. Those of us who remember the Vietnam-era redneck taunt about "America: Love It or Leave It" also remember that if anybody *did* leave, the right wing got immensely offended by it and wanted to hunt them traitors down like dawgs. Then of course there was that unpleasantness of the War Between the States, aka the War of Northern Aggression, in which the Red States left because they didn't like the liberal northerners and their activist judges and politicians disrupting the core of their traditional values, and the Blue States insisted that Nationalism was more important than the right to secede and attacked them. So no, it probably won't fly... Unfortunately, I have to agree with the critics of Kerry who said that he was aloof and out of touch with Middle America; his campaign clearly didn't recognize that Bush had succeeded at telling them that Kerry didn't share their values, and Kerry didn't realize it and demonstrate otherwise, nor did he do an adequate job of talking about Democratic values in a way that would draw them in. And the Republicans and the Democrat establishment had pretty much gotten together to take out Howard Dean, who was building an actual political party inside the hollowed-out shell of the current party. ---- Bill Stewart bill.stewart at pobox.com From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 15:42:05 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:42:05 -0500 Subject: OK, It's Done Message-ID: Moby Tour Diary Updates OK, It's Done 11/3/2004 - New York City can someone remind me why secession is not an option at this point? i mean let's be realistic, we live in a divided country. can't we have the breakaway republics of 'north-east-istan' and 'pacific-stan'? wouldn't the red states be happier without us? we could still travel freely and trade freely with them, but can't we just leave? then you could have 3 countries: northeastistan pacificstan redstateistan one other option would be for us to all join the republican party en masse and make it socially liberal and fiscally conservative(as opposed to it's current 'socially puritanical/fiscally insane' status). ok, it's done. john kerry has seceded. if you need us, my friends and i will be drunk for the next 4 years. -moby << | Close | >> Email to a friend -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 15:42:23 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:42:23 -0500 Subject: 'dear rest of america, Message-ID: Moby Tour Diary Updates Dear.... 11/4/2004 - New York City 'dear rest of america, can't you please let little old new york city secede from the rest of the nation? please? we're very little and you probably wouldn't even notice that we were gone. please? pretty please? how about if we buy you guys donkeys? will you let us secede if we buy each and every person in the rest of the united states a donkey? you'd like to have your own friendly donkey, wouldn't you? wouldn't you rather have a friendly donkey than a small insignificant city that no one really likes anyway? we will be good neighbors, and you can come visit whenever you like(considering you have a valid passport). again, please? thank you very much, and i look forward to hearing your response. -moby' << | Close | >> Email to a friend -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 15:42:29 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:42:29 -0500 Subject: Dear Canada Message-ID: Moby Tour Diary Updates Dear Canada 11/4/2004 - New York City 'dear canada, now, more than ever, your neighbor to the south(aka-the blue states)needs you. most of us living in the northern and western parts of the united states don't feel very connected to the rest of the u.s, so can we bring our states and become part of canada? we have a lot of money and some interesting cities and we promise not to be too much trouble. the benefits to you: a-in one fell swoop you can have southern california and new york city! surfing in canada! suddenly the u.n is on canadian soil! broadway is suddenly in canada! you could then say that canada is the birthplace of jazz and hip-hop! b-money. cold hard cash. the red states in the u.s might have the voting power, but guess who has the money? yup, your friendly neighborhood blue states. so when/if you accept our offer you will instantly become the richest country in the world! that sounds pretty good, right? c-karma. accepting this offer will give you more good karma than you'd know what to do with(because you would instantly make 120 million people VERY happy). so you get warm beaches, tons of cash, and good karma. who can say no to that? please let us know if you accept the offer. given our enthusiasm to join canada it's safe to say that the details of the offer could probably be worked out in an afternoon. thank you very much, moby p.s-just to put your minds at ease, we do know that we can't bring our assault weapons with us.' << | Close | >> Email to a friend -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From measl at mfn.org Thu Nov 4 18:05:34 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:05:34 -0600 (CST) Subject: Finding Galt's Gulch (fwd) Message-ID: <20041104200518.V57518@ubzr.zsa.bet> So, it's the night of the day of the morning after, and all around us are masses milling in despair over the destruction of freedom that has occurred here over the last four years. Given that the US was the "Gulch" to the brain drain of the Soviet Union, where does a true capitalist, or even just a closet objectivist flee today? France? Spain? The "EU"? Where does one go today, if they are unwilling to participate in the Failed Experiment? (BTW: No, Lichtenstein does not accept immigrants, and yes, I have reverified this recently). -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From shaddack at ns.arachne.cz Thu Nov 4 11:28:42 2004 From: shaddack at ns.arachne.cz (Thomas Shaddack) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:28:42 +0100 (CET) Subject: campus network admins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0411042012100.12336@somehost.domainz.com> On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 cypher at tediouspath.com wrote: > > I recently violated the network user agreement (they packet-sniffed and > got the username/password for my FTP server and didn't like what I was > sharing with myself) and was informed by the admin that I am now 'under > observation' and that they "hope I don't like privacy". Considering > this admin was an NSA employee, I tend to take that threat a little > seriously. Depending on how trivial the violation was, it may be worth checking the FTP server logs, identifying the bad ones and collecting the evidence, and eventually, preferably after consultation with a lawyer, nail the admin with hacking charges. (Alternatively just threat with the same, with a remark that you hope he likes lawyers. I suppose you're located in the Land of Lawyers.) If it is better to play a repentant sinner, or go to a confrontation, depends on many more factors unknown to us, including the exact text of the network AUPs, the personality profile of the admin (he may be just power-tripping at you, but the severity of his threats depends on the exact content of your disk which you didn't specify), and other factors like if you are an employee or a student and how much risk you want to go through. Violating AUPs with cleartext protocols isn't a good idea, especially with nazi admins. Next time you may like to prefer ssh/scp, or WebDAV over HTTPS, or a simple password-protected upload/download interface written in PHP or as a CGI script, again over HTTPS (you may like to use one-time passwords for added security). If the admin in question can have physical access to your machine, put the sensitive/objectionable data on an encrypted partition. > Two questions: > > 1) I'm assuming they can legally look at anything that comes in or out > of my computer, but is that the case? Can they look at my computer > itself, or take me off the network for the private contents of my > computer? That depends a lot. If you're in a suitable uni campus, you may try to consult with local law students. This question is something a mere technician can't reliably answer. > 2) Is there some sort of service I can use to have everything I do on the > network encrypted, such as a tunneling service to the internet? Yes. Depends on what you want to do; if you want to be independent on any special software installed on the computers you're operating from, I suggest a HTTPS server, with a self-signed certificate (cheaper), and manually check its fingerprint when connecting. For upload you may use a web file upload form. Don't neglect the certificate check; the admin may like to start playing games with you and launch MITM attack at your connections. Do the fingerprint check even when the browser claims all is OK. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > This message was sent from The Tedious Path > Are you ready to travel The Tedious Path? > http://www.tediouspath.com > http://forum.tediouspath.com From jamesd at echeque.com Thu Nov 4 21:13:02 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:13:02 -0800 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418B0BDE.40605@echeque.com> -- Nomen Nescio wrote: > To label any argument that points out the obvious circumstance that > injustice feeds hatred as communist propaganda, is really only > ridiculous, even if it's also dangerously incompetent and as such no > real laughing matter. > > Why do you mention Bin Laden anyway? There are thousands of bigger > and smaller groups around the world (they exists in every country > more or less) that we'd label as terrorists in the western part of > the world. And all of them are instruments of the affluent and well connected. For example Shining Path was not poor peasants, but academics and students. For the most part using terror are not those suffering injustice, and all of them are those inflicting injustice. This is particularly the case with Islamic terror. For the most part it is not those suffering Dhimmi status that engage in terrorism, but those who in their native countries are successful in inflicting Dhimmi status on those of the incorrect religion, and who apply terror in the hope of expanding this success. Al Quaeda attacked westerners because of their considerable success in murdering and raping Afghans. Jemaah Islamiyah because of their considerable success in murdering and raping Timorese and Ambionese. Today's Islamic terrorism, like yesterday's communist terrorism, is the actions of evil men whose considerably privilege and comfort arises from the injustice and oppression that they have successfully inflicted, and that they intend to inflict a great deal more of. Back before the fall of communism, wherever the master's boot smashed into the face of a child, you lot would loudly praise the master, and demonize the child as a CIA agent. Now, after the fall of communism, you are still at it, even though the masters no longer even pretend to be acting to defend the poor and oppressed. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG QeJ5sNOExxqx0Vq7NTG0bDDnwEip8vKbsX9+9d8i 4IDiep3tuDmwKA77n4H3u9nHRV2g6oqOWQkRYfFcW From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 18:55:58 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 21:55:58 -0500 Subject: Love It or Leave It In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.0.20041104183355.0408ce48@pop.idiom.com> References: <6.0.3.0.0.20041104183355.0408ce48@pop.idiom.com> Message-ID: At 6:34 PM -0800 11/4/04, Bill Stewart wrote: >I have to agree with the critics of Kerry who said >that he was aloof and out of touch with Middle America ... and it's a big middle this year: Of course, there's the "nuanced" version, but, hey, it's a winner-take-all country, ain't it?: Proportional representation is for Europeans, of course... In the meantime "moby" should learn to spell... Channeling Andy Jackson this evening, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Thu Nov 4 01:31:31 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 22:31:31 +1300 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <41892D7C.6030309@echeque.com> Message-ID: "James A. Donald" writes: >But it is hardly a matter of "holding out". So far the Pentagon has >shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand, We're talking about different things, the War on Bogeymen vs. the War for Oil. In its war on bogeymen, the most notable thing the USG has achieved to date is to create vastly more of them. Its strategy is about as effective as the paras were on Bloody Sunday, i.e. its actions serve mostly as a recruitment drive for the opposition: I swear by Almighty God [...] to fight until we die in the field of red gore of the infidel tyrants and murderers. Of our glorious faith, if spared to fight until not a single trace is left to tell that the Holy soil of our country was trodden by these infidels. Also these robbers and brutes, these unbelievers of our faith, will be driven into the sea, by fire, the knife or by poison cup until we of the true faith clear these infidels from our lands. (Whoever wrote the original was definitely no English lit major). Peter. From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 4 20:06:57 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 23:06:57 -0500 Subject: Number One on Blacknet -- with a Bullet Message-ID: The Sun Newspaper Online - UK's biggest selling newspaper Thursday, November 4, 2004 By DEREK BROWN Deputy Showbiz Editor RAPPER Eminem's new album Encore has been leaked on to the internet. The Real Slim Shady star's hotly-anticipated fourth album was stolen nearly two weeks before its release date. The theft has sparked panic at his record label Interscope who have brought forward the worldwide release date. An illegal website called RNS put the entire album on the net two days ago. Thousands of fans instantly downloaded it and could pass it on to countless others. It could lose the 32-year-old rapper MILLIONS of pounds in royalties from CD sales. Interscope bosses were locked in meetings all day yesterday. They decided to bring forward Encore's release date by three days to next Friday November 12. Unveiling the album on a Friday rather than a Monday is virtually unprecedented - and a sign of how panicked bosses are. An insider at the label said: "This is catastrophic news. Security has been so tight on this album nobody can figure out how the album has got out there. "We now think thousands of people around the world are downloading it. "This is a very, very serious issue for us." Encore features 20 tracks with titles including Mosh, Puke and Big Weenie. Eighties star Martika features on Like Toy Soldiers. Despite the theft, experts still predict Encore - the follow up to The Eminem Show - will be the biggest selling album in the world this year. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From measl at mfn.org Thu Nov 4 21:30:13 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 23:30:13 -0600 (CST) Subject: Your source code, for sale In-Reply-To: <20041104230115.6A1CD57E2A@finney.org> References: <20041104230115.6A1CD57E2A@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041104232925.F57518@ubzr.zsa.bet> On Thu, 4 Nov 2004, Hal Finney wrote: > Another idea along these lines is gradual payment for gradual release > of the goods. You pay 10% of the amount and they give you 10% of the > source code. You pay another 10% and you get the next 10% of the source, > and so on. Just as an aside, this is in fact how it was being initially marketed. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From Michael_Heyman at McAfee.com Fri Nov 5 04:20:24 2004 From: Michael_Heyman at McAfee.com (Michael_Heyman at McAfee.com) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 07:20:24 -0500 Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: <5856CEA9F0E6244CB2A8F77162041781D19E9C@rocexmb1.corp.nai.org> > From: owner-cryptography at metzdowd.com > [mailto:owner-cryptography at metzdowd.com] On Behalf Of Finney, Hal (CR) > > [SNIP discussion on ripping cash] > > The problem is that if the source code you are purchasing is > bogus, or if the other side doesn't come through, you're > screwed because you've lost the value of the torn cash. The > other side doesn't gain anything by this fraud, but they harm > you, and if they are malicious that might be enough. > Quick fix for seller incentive: the seller rips some amount of their own cash in such a way that they cannot recover it unless the buyer provides the remainder of the buyer's ripped cash. -Michael Heyman From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 05:17:45 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:17:45 -0500 Subject: Cryptography: Beginning with a Simple Communication Game Message-ID: Click the link to see various formulae. Cheers, RAH ------- InformIT Cryptography: Beginning with a Simple Communication Game Date: Nov 5, 2004 By Wenbo Mao. Sample Chapter is provided courtesy of Prentice Hall PTR. In this introductory chapter from his book, Wenbo Mao uses a simple game to demonstrate the complexity of cryptography, and its utility for your business. We begin this book with a simple example of applying cryptography to solve a simple problem. This example of cryptographic application serves three purposes from which we will unfold the topics of this book: * To provide an initial demonstration on the effectiveness and practicality of using cryptography for solving subtle problems in applications * To suggest an initial hint on the foundation of cryptography * To begin our process of establishing a required mindset for conducting the development of cryptographic systems for information security To begin with, we shall pose a trivially simple problem and then solve it with an equally simple solution. The solution is a two-party game which is very familiar to all of us. However, we will realize that our simple game soon becomes troublesome when our game-playing parties are physically remote from each other. The physical separation of the game-playing parties eliminates the basis for the game to be played fairly. The trouble then is, the game-playing parties cannot trust the other side to play the game fairly. The need for a fair playing of the game for remote players will "inspire" us to strengthen our simple game by protecting it with a shield of armor. Our strengthening method follows the long established idea for protecting communications over open networks: hiding information using cryptography. After having applied cryptography and reached a quality solution to our first security problem, we shall conduct a series of discussions on the quality criteria for cryptographic systems ('1.2). The discussions will serve as a background and cultural introduction to the areas in which we research and develop technologies for protecting sensitive information. 1.1 A Communication Game Here is a simple problem. Two friends, Alice and Boba, want to spend an evening out together, but they cannot decide whether to go to the cinema or the opera. Nevertheless, they reach an agreement to let a coin decide: playing a coin tossing game which is very familiar to all of us. Alice holds a coin and says to Bob, "You pick a side then I will toss the coin." Bob does so and then Alice tosses the coin in the air. Then they both look to see which side of the coin landed on top. If Bob's choice is on top, Bob may decide where they go; if the other side of the coin lands on top, Alice makes the decision. In the study of communication procedures, a multi-party-played game like this one can be given a "scientific sounding" name: protocol. A protocol is a well-defined procedure running among a plural number of participating entities. We should note the importance of the plurality of the game participants; if a procedure is executed entirely by one entity only then it is a procedure and cannot be called a protocol. 1.1.1 Our First Application of Cryptography Now imagine that the two friends are trying to run this protocol over the telephone. Alice offers Bob, "You pick a side. Then I will toss the coin and tell you whether or not you have won." Of course Bob will not agree, because he cannot verify the outcome of the coin toss. However we can add a little bit of cryptography to this protocol and turn it into a version workable over the phone. The result will become a cryptographic protocol, our first cryptographic protocol in this book! For the time being, let us just consider our "cryptography" as a mathematical function f(x) which maps over the integers and has the following magic properties: Property 1.1: Magic Function f I. For every integer x, it is easy to compute f(x) from x, while given any value f(x) it is impossible to find any information about a pre-image x, e.g., whether x is an odd or even number. Protocol 1.1: Coin Flipping Over Telephone PREMISE Alice and Bob have agreed: i. a "magic function" f with properties specified in Property 1.1 ii. an even number x in f(x) represents HEADS and the other case represents TAILS (* Caution: due to (ii), this protocol has a weakness, see Exercise 1.2 *) 1. Alice picks a large random integer x and computes f(x); she reads f(x) to Bob over the phone; 2. Bob tells Alice his guess of x as even or odd; 3. Alice reads x to Bob; 4. Bob verifies f(x) and sees the correctness/incorrectness of his guess. II. It impossible to find a pair of integers (x, y) satisfying x  y and f(x) = f(y). In Property 1.1, the adjectives "easy" and "impossible" have meanings which need further explanations. Also because these words are related to a degree of difficulty, we should be clear about their quantifications. However, since for now we view the function f as a magic one, it is safe for us to use these words in the way they are used in the common language. In Chapter 4 we will provide mathematical formulations for various uses of "easy" and "impossible" in this book. One important task for this book is to establish various quantitative meanings for "easy," "difficult" or even "impossible." In fact, as we will eventually see in the final technical chapter of this book (Chapter 19) that in our final realization of the coin-flipping protocol, the two uses of "impossible" for the "magic function" in Property 1.1 will have very different quantitative measures. Suppose that the two friends have agreed on the magic function f. Suppose also that they have agreed that, e.g., an even number represents HEADS and an odd number represents TAILS. Now they are ready to run our first cryptographic protocol, Prot 1.1, over the phone. It is not difficult to argue that Protocol "Coin Flipping Over Telephone" works quite well over the telephone. The following is a rudimentary "security analysis." (Warning: the reason for us to quote "security analysis" is because our analysis provided here is far from adequate.) 1.1.1.1 A Rudimentary "Security Analysis" First, from "Property II" of f, Alice is unable to find two different numbers x and y, one is odd and the other even (this can be expressed as x  y (mod 2)) such that f(x) = f(y). Thus, once having read the value f(x) to Bob over the phone (Step 1), Alice has committed to her choice of x and cannot change her mind. That's when Alice has completed her coin flipping. Secondly, due to "Property I" of f, given the value f(x), Bob cannot determine whether the pre-image used by Alice is odd or even and so has to place his guess (in Step 2) as a real guess (i.e., an uneducated guess). At this point, Alice can convince Bob whether he has guessed right or wrong by revealing her pre-image x (Step 3). Indeed, Bob should be convinced if his own evaluation of f(x) (in Step 4) matches the value told by Alice in Step 1 and if he believes that the properties of the agreed function hold. Also, the coin-flipping is fair if x is taken from an adequately large space so Bob could not have a guessing advantage, that is, some strategy that gives him a greater than 50-50 chance of winning. We should notice that in our "security analysis" for Prot 1.1 we have made a number of simplifications and omissions. As a result, the current version of the protocol is far from a concrete realization. Some of these simplifications and omissions will be discussed in this chapter. However, necessary techniques for a proper and concrete realization of this protocol and methodologies for analyzing its security will be the main topics for the remainder of the whole book. We shall defer the proper and concrete realization of Prot 1.1 (more precisely, the "magic function" f) to the final technical chapter of this book (Chapter 19). There, we will be technically ready to provide a formal security analysis on the concrete realization. 1.1.2 An Initial Hint on Foundations of Cryptography Although our first protocol is very simple, it indeed qualifies as a cryptographic protocol because the "magic function" the protocol uses is a fundamental ingredient for modern cryptography: one-way function. The two magic properties listed in Property 1.1 pose two computationally intractable problems, one for Alice, and the other for Bob. From our rudimentary security analysis for Prot 1.1 we can claim that the existence of one-way function implies a possibility for secure selection of recreation venue. The following is a reasonable generalization of this claim: The existence of a one-way function implies the existence of a secure cryptographic system. It is now well understood that the converse of this claim is also true: The existence of a secure cryptographic system implies the existence of a one-way function. It is widely believed that one-way function does exist. Therefore we are optimistic on securing our information. Our optimism is often confirmed by our everyday experience: many processes in our world, mathematical or otherwise, have a one-way property. Consider the following phenomenon in physics (though not an extremely precise analogy for mathematics): it is an easy process for a glass to fall on the floor and break into pieces while dispersing a certain amount of energy (e.g., heat, sound or even some dim light) into the surrounding environment. The reverse process, recollecting the dispersed energy and using it to reintegrate the broken pieces back into a whole glass, must be a very hard problem if not impossible. (If possible, the fully recollected energy could actually bounce the reintegrated glass back to the height where it started to fall!) In Chapter 4 we shall see a class of mathematical functions which provide the needed one-way properties for modern cryptography. 1.1.3 Basis of Information Security: More than Computational Intractability We have just claimed that information security requires certain mathematical properties. Moreover, we have further made an optimistic assertion in the converse direction: mathematical properties imply (i.e., guarantee) information security. However, in reality, the latter statement is not unconditionally true! Security in real world applications depends on many real world issues. Let us explain this by continuing using our first protocol example. We should point out that many important issues have not been considered in our rudimentary security analysis for Prot 1.1. In fact, Prot 1.1 itself is a much simplified specification. It has omitted some details which are important to the security services that the protocol is designed to offer. The omission has prevented us from asking several questions. For instance, we may ask: has Alice really been forced to stick to her choice of x? Likewise, has Bob really been forced to stick to his even-odd guess of x? By "forced," we mean whether voice over telephone is sufficient for guaranteeing the strong mathematical property to take effect. We may also ask whether Alice has a good random number generator for her to acquire the random number x. This quality can be crucially important in a more serious application which requires making a fair decision. All these details have been omitted from this simplified protocol specification and therefore they become hidden assumptions (more on this later). In fact, if this protocol is used for making a more serious decision, it should include some explicit instructions. For example, both participants may consider recording the other party's voice when the value f(x) and the even/odd guess are pronounced over the phone, and replay the record in case of dispute. Often cryptographic systems and protocols, in particular, those introduced by a textbook on cryptography, are specified with simplifications similar to the case in Protocol "Coin Flipping Over Telephone." Simplifications can help to achieve presentation clarity, especially when some agreement may be thought of as obvious. But sometimes a hidden agreement or assumption may be subtle and can be exploited to result in a surprising consequence. This is somewhat ironic to the "presentation clarity" which is originally intended by omitting some details. A violation of an assumption of a security system may allow an attack to be exploited and the consequence can be the nullification of an intended service. It is particularly difficult to notice a violation of a hidden assumption. In '1.2.5 we shall provide a discussion on the importance of explicit design and specification of cryptographic systems. A main theme of this book is to explain that security for real world applications has many application related subtleties which must be considered seriously. 1.1.4 Modern Role of Cryptography: Ensuring Fair Play of Games Cryptography was once a preserve of governments. Military and diplomatic organizations used it to keep messages secret. Nowadays, however, cryptography has a modernized role in addition to keeping secrecy of information: ensuring fair play of "games" by a much enlarged population of "game players." That is part of the reasons why we have chosen to begin this book on cryptography with a communication game. Deciding on a recreation venue may not be seen as a serious business, and so doing it via flipping a coin over the phone can be considered as just playing a small communication game for fun. However, there are many communications "games" which must be taken much more seriously. With more and more business and e-commerce activities being and to be conducted electronically over open communications networks, many cases of our communications involve various kinds of "game playing." (In the Preface of this book we have listed various business and services examples which can be conducted or offered electronically over open networks; all of them involve some interactive actions of the participants by following a set of rules, which can be viewed as "playing communication games".) These "games" can be very important! In general, the "players" of such "games" are physically distant from each other and they communicate over open networks which are notorious for lack of security. The physical distance combined with the lack of security may help and/or encourage some of the "game players" (some of whom can even be uninvited) to try to defeat the rule of game in some clever way. The intention for defeating the rule of game is to try to gain some unentitled advantage, such as causing disclosure of confidential information, modification of data without detection, forgery of false evidence, repudiation of an obligation, damage of accountability or trust, reduction of availability or nullification of services, and so on. The importance of our modern communications in business, in the conduct of commerce and in providing services (and many more others, such as securing missions of companies, personal information, military actions and state affairs) mean that no unentitled advantage should be gained to a player who does not conform the rule of game. In our development of the simple "Coin-Flipping-Over-Telephone" cryptographic protocol, we have witnessed the process whereby an easy-to-sabotage communication game evolves to a cryptographic protocol and thereby offers desired security services. Our example demonstrates the effectiveness of cryptography in maintaining the order of "game playing." Indeed, the use of cryptography is an effective and the only practical way to ensure secure communications over open computers and communications networks. Cryptographic protocols are just communication procedures armored with the use of cryptography and thereby have protective functions designed to keep communications in good order. The endless need for securing communications for electronic commerce, business and services coupled with another need for anticipating the ceaseless temptation of "breaking the rules of the game" have resulted in the existence of many cryptographic systems and protocols, which form the subject matter of this book. 1.2 Criteria for Desirable Cryptographic Systems and Protocols We should start by asking a fundamental question: What is a good cryptographic system/protocol? Undoubtedly this question is not easy to answer! One reason is that there are many answers to it depending on various meanings the word good may have. It is a main task for this book to provide comprehensive answers to this fundamental question. However, here in this first chapter we should provide a few initial answers. 1.2.1 Stringency of Protection Tuned to Application Needs Let us begin with considering our first cryptographic protocol we designed in '1.1.1. We can say that Protocol "Coin Flipping Over Telephone" is good in the sense that it is conceptually very simple. Some readers who may already be familiar with many practical one-way hash functions, such as SHA-1 (see '10.3.1), might further consider that the function f(x) is also easy to implement even in a pocket calculator. For example, an output from SHA-1 is a bit string of length of 160 bits, or 20 bytes (1 byte = 8 bits); using the hexadecimal encoding scheme (see Example 5.17) such an output can be encoded into 40 hexadecimal charactersb and so it is just not too tedious for Alice (Bob) to read (and jot down) over the phone. Such an implementation should also be considered sufficiently secure for Alice and Bob to decide their recreation venue: if Alice wants to cheat, she faces a non-trivial difficulty in order to find x  y (mod 2) with f(x) = f(y); likewise, Bob will also have to face a non-trivial difficulty, that is, given f(x), to determine whether x is even or odd. However, our judgement on the quality of Protocol "Coin Flipping Over Telephone" realized using SHA-1 is based on a level of non-seriousness that the game players expect on the consequence of the game. In many more serious applications (e.g., one which we shall discuss in '1.2.4), a fair coin-flipping primitive for cryptographic use will in general require much stronger one-way and commitment-binding properties than a practical one-way hash function, such as SHA-1, can offer. We should notice that a function with the properties specified in Property 1.1, if we take the word "impossible" literally, is a completely secure one-way function. Such a function is not easily implementable. Worse, even its very existence remains an open question (even though we are optimistic about the existence, see our optimistic view in '1.1.2, we shall further discuss the condition for the existence of a one-way function in Chapter 4). Therefore, for more serious applications of fair coin-flipping, practical hash functions won't be considered good; much more stringent cryptographic techniques are necessary. On the other hand, for deciding a recreation venue, use of heavyweight cryptography is clearly unnecessary or overkill. We should point out that there are applications where a too-strong protection will even prevent an intended security service from functioning properly. For example, Rivest and Shamir propose a micropayment scheme, called MicroMint [242], which works by making use of a known deficiency in an encryption algorithm to their advantage. That payment system exploits a reasonable assumption that only a resourceful service provider (e.g., a large bank or financial institute) is able to prepare a large number of "collisions" under a practical one-way function, and do so economically. This is to say that the service provider can compute k distinct numbers (x1, x2, . . ., xk) satisfying The numbers x1, x2, . . ., xk, are called collision under the one-way function f. A pair of collisions can be checked efficiently since the one-way function can be evaluated efficiently, they can be considered to have been issued by the resourceful service provider and hence can represent a certified value. The Data Encryption Standard (DES, see '7.6) is suggested as a suitable algorithm for implementing such a one-way function ([242]) and so to achieve a relatively small output space (64 binary bits). Thus, unlike in the normal cryptographic use of one-way functions where a collision almost certainly constitutes a successful attack on the system (for example, in the case of Protocol "Coin Flipping Over Telephone"), in MicroMint, collisions are used in order to enable a fancy micropayment service! Clearly, a strong one-way function with a significantly larger output space (i.e., 64 bits, such as SHA-1 with 160 bits) will nullify this service even for a resourceful service provider (in '3.6 we will study the computational complexity for finding collisions under a hash function). Although it is understandable that using heavyweight cryptographic technologies in the design of security systems (for example, wrapping with layers of encryption, arbitrarily using digital signatures, calling for online services from a trusted third party or even from a large number of them) may provide a better feeling that a stronger security may have been achieved (it may also ease the design job), often this feeling only provides a false sense of assurance. Reaching the point of overkill with unnecessary armor is undesirable because in so doing it is more likely to require stronger security assumptions and to result in a more complex system. A complex system can also mean an increased difficulty for security analysis (hence more likelihood to be error-prone) and secure implementation, a poorer performance, and a higher overhead cost for running and maintenance. It is more interesting and a more challenging job to design cryptographic or security systems which use only necessary techniques while achieving adequate security protection. This is an important element for cryptographic and security systems to qualify as good. 1.2.2 Confidence in Security Based on Established "Pedigree" How can we be confident that a cryptographic algorithm or a protocol is secure? Is it valid to say that an algorithm is secure because nobody has broken it? The answer is, unfortunately, no. In general, what we can say about an unbroken algorithm is merely that we do not know how to break it yet. Because in cryptography, the meaning of a broken algorithm sometimes has quantitative measures; if such a measure is missing from an unbroken algorithm, then we cannot even assert whether or not an unbroken algorithm is more secure than a known broken one. Nevertheless, there are a few exceptions. In most cases, the task of breaking a cryptographic algorithm or a scheme boils down to solving some mathematical problems, such as to find a solution to an equation or to invert a function. These mathematical problems are considered "hard" or "intractable." A formal definition for "hard" or "intractable" will be given in Chapter 4. Here we can informally, yet safely, say that a mathematical problem is intractable if it cannot be solved by any known methods within a reasonable length of time. There are a number of well-known intractable problems that have been frequently used as standard ingredients in modern cryptography, in particular, in public-key or asymmetric cryptography (see '8.3-'8.14). For example, in public-key cryptography, intractable problems include the integer factorization problem, the discrete logarithm problem, the Diffie-Hellman problem, and a few associated problems (we will define and discuss these problems in Chapter 8). These problems can be referred to as established "pedigree" ones because they have sustained a long history of study by generations of mathematicians and as a result, they are now trusted as really hard with a high degree of confidence. Today, a standard technique for establishing a high degree of confidence in security of a cryptographic algorithm is to conduct a formal proof which demonstrates that an attack on the algorithm can lead to a solution to one of the accepted "pedigree" hard problems. Such a proof is an efficient mathematical transformation, or a sequence of such transformations, leading from an attack on an algorithm to a solution to a hard problem. Such an efficient transformation is called a reduction which "reduces" an attack to a solution to a hard problem. Since we are highly confident that the resultant solution to the hard problem is unlikely to exist (especially under the time cost measured by the attack and the reduction transformation), we will be able to derive a measurable confidence that the alleged attack should not exist. This way of security proof is therefore named "reduction to contradiction:" an easy solution to a hard problem. Formally provable security, in particular under various powerful attacking model called adaptive attacks, forms an important criterion for cryptographic algorithms and protocols to be regarded as good. We shall use fit-for-application security to name security qualities which are established through formal and reduction-to-contradiction approach under powerful attacking models. As an important topic of this book, we shall study fit-for-application security for many cryptographic algorithms and protocols. 1.2.3 Practical Efficiency When we say that a mathematical problem is efficient or is efficiently solvable, we basically assert that the problem is solvable in time which can be measured by a polynomial in the size of the problem. A formal definition for efficiency, which will let us provide precise measures of this assertion, will be provided in Chapter 4. Without looking into quantitative details of this assertion for the time being, we can roughly say that this assertion divides all the problems into two classes: tractable and intractable. This division plays a fundamental role in the foundations for modern cryptography: a complexity-theoretically based one. Clearly, a cryptographic algorithm must be designed such that it is tractable on the one hand and so is usable by a legitimate user, but is intractable on the other hand and so constitutes a difficult problem for a non-user or an attacker to solve. We should however note that this assertion for solubility covers a vast span of quantitative measures. If a problem's computing time for a legitimate user is measured by a huge polynomial, then the "efficiency" is in general impractical, i.e., can have no value for a practical use. Thus, an important criterion for a cryptographic algorithm being good is that it should be practically efficient for a legitimate user. In specific, the polynomial that measures the resource cost for the user should be small (i.e., have a small degree, the degree of a polynomial will be introduced in Chapter 4). In Chapter 14 we will discuss several pioneering works on provably strong public-key cryptosystems. These works propose public-key encryption algorithms under a common motivation that many basic versions of public-key encryption algorithms are insecure (we name those insecure schemes "textbook crypto" because most textbooks in cryptography introduce them up to their basic and primitive versions; they will be introduced in Part III of this book). However, most pioneering works on provably strong public-key cryptosystems resort to a bit-by-bit encryption method, [125, 210, 241], some even take extraordinary steps of adding proofs of knowledge on the correct encryption of each individual bit [210] plus using public-key authentication framework [241]. While these early pioneering works are important in providing insights to achieve strong security, the systems they propose are in general too inefficient for applications. After Chapter 14, we will further study a series of subsequent works following the pioneering ones on probably strongly secure public-key cryptosystems and digital signature schemes. The cryptographic schemes proposed by these latter works propose have not only strong security, but also practical efficiency. They are indeed very good cryptographic schemes. A cryptographic protocol is not only an algorithm, it is also a communication procedure which involves transmitting of messages over computer networks between different protocol participants under a set of agreed rules. So a protocol has a further dimension for efficiency measure: the number of communication interactions which are often called communication rounds. Usually a step of communication is regarded to be more costly than a step of local computation (typically an execution of a set of computer instructions, e.g. a multiplication of two numbers on a computing device). Therefore it is desirable that a cryptographic protocol should have few communication rounds. The standard efficiency criterion for declaring an algorithm as being efficient is if its running time is bounded by a small polynomial in the size of the problem. If we apply this efficiency criterion to a protocol, then an efficient protocol should have its number of communication rounds bounded by a polynomial of an extremely small degree: a constant (degree 0) or at most a linear (degree 1) function. A protocol with communication rounds exceeding a linear function should not be regarded as practically efficient, that is, no good for any practical use. In '18.2.3 we will discuss some zero-knowledge proof protocols which have communication rounds measured by non-linear polynomials. We should note that those protocols were not proposed for real applications; instead, they have importance in the theory of cryptography and computational complexity. In Chapter 18 we will witness much research effort for designing practically efficient zero-knowledge protocols. 1.2.4 Use of Practical and Available Primitives and Services A level of security which is good for one application needn't be good enough for another. Again, let us use our coin-flipping protocol as an example. In '1.2.1 we have agreed that, if implemented with the use of a practical one-way hash function, Protocol "Coin Flipping Over Telephone" is good enough for Alice and Bob to decide their recreation venue over the phone. However, in many cryptographic applications of a fair coin-flipping primitive, security services against cheating and/or for fairness are at much more stringent levels; in some applications the stringency must be in an absolute sense. For example, in Chapter 18 we will discuss a zero-knowledge proof protocol which needs random bit string input and such random input must be mutually trusted by both proving/verification parties, or else serious damages will occur to one or both parties. In such zero-knowledge proof protocols, if the two communication parties do not have access to, or do not trust, a third-party-based service for supplying random numbers (such a service is usually nicknamed "random numbers from the sky" to imply its impracticality) then they have to generate their mutually trusted random numbers, bit-by-bit via a fair coin-flipping protocol. Notice that here the need for the randomness to be generated in a bit-by-bit (i.e., via fair coin-flipping) manner is in order to satisfy certain requirements, such as the correctness and zero-knowledge-ness of the protocol. In such a situation, a level of practically good (e.g., in the sense of using a practical hash function in Protocol "Coin Flipping Over Telephone") is most likely to be inadequate. A challenging task in applied research on cryptography and cryptographic protocols is to build high quality security services from practical and available cryptographic primitives. Once more, let us use a coin-flipping protocol to make this point clear. The protocol is a remote coin-flipping protocol proposed by Blum [43]. Blum's protocol employs a practically secure and easily implementable "one-way" function but achieves a high-quality security in a very strong fashion which can be expressed as: * First, it achieves a quantitative measure on the difficulty against the coin flipping party (e.g., Alice) for cheating, i.e., for preparing a pair of collision x  y satisfying f(x) = f(y). Here, the difficulty is quantified by that for factoring a large composite integer, i.e., that for solving a "pedigree" hard problem. * Second, there is absolutely no way for the guessing party to have a guessing strategy biased away from the 50-50 chance. This is in terms of a complete security. Thus, Blum's coin-flipping protocol is particularly good in the sense of having achieved a strong security while using only practical cryptographic primitives. As a strengthening and concrete realization for our first cryptographic protocol, we will describe Blum's coin-flipping protocol as the final cryptographic protocol of this book. Several years after the discovery of public-key cryptography [97, 98, 246], it became gradually apparent that several basic and best-known public-key encryption algorithms (we will refer to them as "textbook crypto") generally have two kinds of weakness: (i) they leak partial information about the message encrypted; (ii) they are extremely vulnerable to active attacks (see Chapter 14). These weaknesses mean that "textbook crypto" are not fit for applications. Early approaches to a general fix for the weaknesses in "textbook crypto" invariantly apply bit-by-bit style of encryption and even apply zero-knowledge proof technique at bit-by-bit level as a means to prevent active attacks, plus authentication framework. These results, while valuable in the development of provably secure public-key encryption algorithms, are not suitable for most encryption applications since the need for zero-knowledge proof or for authentication framework is not practical for the case of encryption algorithms. Since the successful initial work of using a randomized padding scheme in the strengthening of a public key encryption algorithm [24], a general approach emerges which strengthens popular textbook public-key encryption algorithms into ones with provable security by using popular primitives such as hash functions and pseudorandom number generators. These strengthened encryption schemes are practical since they use practical primitives such as hash functions, and consequently their efficiency is similar to the underlying "textbook crypto" counterparts. Due to this important quality element, some of these algorithms enhanced from using practical and popular primitives become public-key encryption and digital signature standards. We shall study several such schemes in Chapters 15 and 16. Designing cryptographic schemes, protocols and security systems using available and popular techniques and primitives is also desirable in the sense that such results are more likely to be secure as they attract a wider interest for public scrutiny. 1.2.5 Explicitness In the late 1960's, software systems grew very large and complex. Computer programmers began to experience a crisis, the so-called "software crisis." Large and complex software systems were getting more and more error prone, and the cost of debugging a program became far in excess of the cost of the program design and development. Soon computer scientists discovered a few perpetrators who helped to set-up the crisis which resulted from bad programming practice. Bad programming practice includes: * Arbitrary use of the GOTO statement (jumping up and down seems very convenient) * Abundant use of global variables (causing uncontrolled change of their values, e.g., in an unexpected execution of a subroutine) * The use of variables without declaration of their types (implicit types can be used in Fortran, so, for example, a real value may be truncated to an integer one without being noticed by the programmer) * Unstructured and unorganized large chunk of codes for many tasks (can be thousands of lines a piece) * Few commentary lines (since they don't execute!) These were a few "convenient" things for a programmer to do, but had proved to be capable of causing great difficulties in program debugging, maintenance and further development. Software codes designed with these "convenient" features can be just too obscure to be comprehensible and maintained. Back then it was not uncommon that a programmer would not be able to to understand a piece of code s/he had written merely a couple of months or even weeks ago. Once the disastrous consequences resulting from the bad programming practice were being gradually understood, Program Design Methodology became a subject of study in which being explicit became an important principle for programming. Being explicit includes limiting the use of GOTO and global variables (better not to use them at all), explicit (via mandatory) type declaration for any variables, which permits a compiler to check type flaws systematically and automatically, modularizing programming (dividing a large program into many smaller parts, each for one task), and using abundant (as clear as possible) commentary material which are texts inside a program and documentation outside. A security system (cryptographic algorithm or protocol) includes program parts implemented in software and/or hardware, and in the case of protocol, the program parts run on a number of separate hosts (or a number of programs concurrently and interactively running on these hosts). The explicitness principle for software engineering applies to a security system's design by default (this is true in particular for protocols). However, because a security system is assumed to run in a hostile environment in which even a legitimate user may be malicious, a designer of such systems must also be explicit about many additional things. Here we list three important aspects to serve as general guidelines for security system designers and implementors. (In the rest of the book we will see many attacks on algorithms and protocols due to being implicit in design or specification of these systems.) 1. Be explicit about all assumptions needed. A security system operates by interacting with an environment and therefore it has a set of requirements which must be satisfied by that environment. These requirements are called assumptions (or premises) for a system to run. A violation of an assumption of a protocol may allow the possibility of exploiting an attack on the system and the consequence can be the nullification of some intended services. It is particularly difficult to notice a violation of an assumption which has not been clearly specified (a hidden assumption). Therefore all assumptions of a security system should be made explicit. For example, it is quite common that a protocol has an implicit assumption or expectation that a computer host upon which the protocol runs can supply good random numbers, but in reality few desktop machines or hand-held devices are capable of satisfying this assumption. A so-called low-entropy attack is applicable to protocols using a poor random source. A widely publicized attack on an early implementation of the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Protocol (an authentication protocol for World Wide Web browser and server, see '12.5) is a well-known example of the low-entropy attack [123]. Explicit identification and specification of assumptions can also help the analysis of complex systems. DeMillo et al. (Chapter 4 of [91]), DeMillo and Merritt [92] suggest a two-step approach to cryptographic protocol design and analysis, which are listed below (after a modification by Moore [204, 205]): i. Identify all assumptions made in the protocol. ii. For each assumption in step (i), determine the effect on the security of the protocol if that assumption were violated. 2. Be explicit about exact security services to be offered. A cryptographic algorithm/protocol provides certain security services. Examples of some important security services include: confidentiality (a message cannot be comprehended by a non-recipient), authentication (a message can be recognized to confirm its integrity or its origin), non-repudiation (impossibility for one to deny a connection to a message), proof of knowledge (demonstration of evidence without disclosing it), and commitment (e.g., a service offered to our first cryptographic protocol "Coin Flipping Over Telephone" in which Alice is forced to stick to a string without being able to change). When designing a cryptographic protocol, the designer should be very clear regarding exactly what services the protocol intends to serve and should explicitly specify them as well. The explicit identification and specification will not only help the designer to choose correct cryptographic primitives or algorithms, but also help an implementor to correctly implement the protocol. Often, an identification of services to the refinement level of the general services given in these examples is not adequate, and further refinement of them is necessary. Here are a few possible ways to further refine some of them: Confidentiality privacy, anonymity, invisibility, indistinguishability Authentication data-origin, data-integrity, peer-entity Non-repudiation message-issuance, message-receipt Proof of knowledge knowledge possession, knowledge structure A misidentification of services in a protocol design can cause misuse of cryptographic primitives, and the consequence can be a security flaw in the protocol. In Chapter 2 and Chapter 11 we will see disastrous examples of security flaws in authentication protocols due to misidentification of security services between confidentiality and authentication. There can be many more kinds of security services with more ad hoc names (e.g., message freshness, non-malleability, forward secrecy, perfect zero-knowledge, fairness, binding, deniability, receipt freeness, and so on). These may be considered as derivatives or further refinement from the general services that we have listed earlier (a derivative can be in terms of negation, e.g., deniability is a negative derivative from non-repudiation). Nevertheless, explicit identification of them is often necessary in order to avoid design flaws. 3. Be explicit about special cases in mathematics. As we have discussed in '1.2.2, some hard problems in computational complexity theory can provide a high confidence in the security of a cryptographic algorithm or protocol. However, often a hard problem has some special cases which are not hard at all. For example, we know that the problem of factorization of a large composite integer is in general very hard. However the factorization of a large composite integer N = PQ where Q is the next prime number of a large prime number P is not a hard problem at all! One can do so efficiently by computing (? is called the floor function and denotes the integer part of 7) and followed by a few trial divisions around that number to pinpoint P and Q. Usual algebraic structures upon which cryptographic algorithms work (such as groups, rings and fields, to be studied in Chapter 5) contain special cases which produce exceptionally easy problems. Elements of small multiplicative orders (also defined in Chapter 5) in a multiplicative group or a finite field provide such an example; an extreme case of this is when the base for the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol (see '8.3) is the unity element in these algebraic structures. Weak cases of elliptic curves, e.g., "supersingular curves" and "anomalous curves," form another example. The discrete logarithm problem on "supersingular curves" can be reduced to the discrete logarithm problem on a finite field, known as the Menezes-Okamoto-Vanstone attack [197] (see '13.3.4.1). An "anomalous curve" is one with the number of points on it being equal to the size of the underlying field, which allows a polynomial time solution to the discrete logarithm problem on the curve, known as the attack of Satoh-Araki [252], Semaev [258] and Smart [278]. An easy special case, if not understood by an algorithm/protocol designer and/or not clearly specified in an algorithm/protocol specification, may easily go into an implementation and can thus be exploited by an attacker. So an algorithm/protocol designer must be aware of the special cases in mathematics, and should explicitly specify the procedures for the implementor to eliminate such cases. It is not difficult to list many more items for explicitness (for example, a key-management protocol should stipulate explicitly the key-management rules, such as separation of keys for different usages, and the procedures for proper key disposal, etc.). Due to the specific nature of these items we cannot list all of them here. However, explicitness as a general principle for cryptographic algorithm/protocol design and specification will be frequently raised in the rest of the book. In general, the more explicitly an algorithm/protocol is designed and specified, the easier it is for the algorithm/protocol to be analyzed; therefore the more likely it is for the algorithm/protocol to be correctly implemented, and the less likely it is for the algorithm/protocol to suffer an unexpected attack. 1.2.6 Openness Cryptography was once a preserve of governments. Military and diplomatic organizations used it to keep messages secret. In those days, most cryptographic research was conducted behind closed doors; algorithms and protocols were secrets. Indeed, governments did, and they still do, have a valid point in keeping their cryptographic research activities secret. Let us imagine that a government agency publishes a cipher. We should only consider the case that the cipher published is provably secure; otherwise the publication can be too dangerous and may actually end up causing embarrassment to the government. Then other governments may use the provably secure cipher and consequently undermine the effectiveness of the code-breakers of the government which published the cipher. Nowadays, however, cryptographic mechanisms have been incorporated in a wide range of civilian systems (we have provided a non-exhaustive list of applications in the very beginning of this chapter). Cryptographic research for civilian use should take an open approach. Cryptographic algorithms do use secrets, but these secrets should be confined to the cryptographic keys or keying material (such as passwords or PINs); the algorithms themselves should be made public. Let's explore the reasons for this stipulation. In any area of study, quality research depends on the open exchange of ideas via conference presentations and publications in scholarly journals. However, in the areas of cryptographic algorithms, protocols and security systems, open research is more than just a common means to acquire and advance knowledge. An important function of open research is public expert examination. Cryptographic algorithms, protocols and security systems have been notoriously error prone. Once a cryptographic research result is made public it can be examined by a large number of experts. Then the opportunity for finding errors (in design or maybe in security analysis) which may have been overlooked by the designers will be greatly increased. In contrast, if an algorithm is designed and developed in secret, then in order to keep the secret, only few, if any, experts can have access to and examine the details. As a result the chance for finding errors is decreased. A worse scenario can be that a designer may know an error and may exploit it secretly. It is now an established principle that cryptographic algorithms, protocols, and security systems for civilian use must be made public, and must go through a lengthy public examination process. Peer review of a security system should be conducted by a hostile expert. 1.3 Chapter Summary In this chapter we began with an easy example of applied cryptography. The three purposes served by the example are: i. Showing the effectiveness of cryptography in problem solving ii. Aiming for a fundamental understanding of cryptography iii. Emphasizing the importance of non-textbook aspects of security They form the main topics to be developed in the rest of this book. We then conducted a series of discussions which served the purpose for an initial background and cultural introduction to the areas of study. Our discussions in these directions are by no means of complete. Several other authors have also conducted extensive study on principles, guidelines and culture for the areas of cryptography and information security. The following books form good further reading material: Schneier [254], Gollmann [129] and Anderson [14]. Schneier's monthly distributed "Crypto-Gram Newsletters" are also good reading material. To subscribe for receiving the newsletters, send an email to schneier at counterpane.com. Exercises 1.1 What is the difference between a protocol and an algorithm? 1.2 In Prot 1.1 Alice can decide HEADS or TAILS. This may be an unfair advantage for some applications. Modify the protocol so that Alice can no longer have this advantage. Hint: let a correct guess decide the side. 1.3 Let function f map from the space of 200-bit integers to that of 100-bit ones with the following mapping rule: here "?" denotes bit-by-bit XOR operation, i.e., i. Is f efficient? ii. Does f have the "Magic Property I"? iii. Does f have the "Magic Property II"? iv. Can this function be used in Prot 1.1? 1.4 Is an unbroken cryptographic algorithm more secure than a known broken one? If not, why? 1.5 Complex systems are error-prone. Give an additional reason for a complex security system to be even more error-prone. ) 2004 Pearson Education, Inc. InformIT. All rights reserved. 800 East 96th Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46240 -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 05:45:03 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:45:03 -0500 Subject: A Gangster With Politics Message-ID: "A prince is a bandit who doesn't move." --Mancur Olsen Cheers, RAH -------- The Wall Street Journal November 5, 2004 COMMENTARY A Gangster With Politics By BRET STEPHENS November 5, 2004; Page A12 In 1993, the British National Criminal Intelligence Service commissioned a report on the sources of funding of the Palestine Liberation Organization. For years, it had been Chairman Yasser Arafat's claim that he'd made a fortune in construction as a young engineer in Kuwait in the 1950s, and that it was this seed money, along with a 5% levy on the Palestinian workers in Arab League countries, which kept the PLO solvent. But British investigators took a different view: The PLO, they concluded, maintained sidelines in "extortion, payoffs, illegal arms-dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud," bringing its estimated fortune to $14 billion. In retrospect, it would seem amazing that 1993 was also the year in which the head of this criminal enterprise would be feted on the White House lawn for agreeing peace with Israel. But then, so much about the 1990s was amazing, which is perhaps why Arafat, of all people, thrived in that time. The ra'is, as he is commonly spoken of among Palestinians, may basically have been a gangster with politics, but he was also one of the 20th century's great political illusionists. He conjured a persona, a cause, and indeed a people virtually ex nihilo, then rallied much of the world to his side. Now that he is dead, or nearly so -- news reports vary as of this writing -- it will be interesting to see what becomes of his legacy. Who was Yasser Arafat? For starters, he was not a native Palestinian, although his parents were and he variously claimed to have been born in Gaza or Jerusalem. In fact, he was born and schooled in Cairo, spoke Arabic with an Egyptian accent, and took no part in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Nakba (catastrophe) which Palestinians regard as their formative national experience. Nor did Arafat take part in the Suez War, again despite later claims to the contrary. But this was the period of Third World ferment -- of the "anti-colonialist" Bandung politics of Indonesia's Sukarno, Algeria's Ben Bela, Cuba's Fidel and Egypt's Nasser -- and at the University of Cairo Arafat became a student activist and head of the Palestine Student Union. He also began developing the Arafat persona -- kaffiyah, uniform, half-beard and later the holstered pistol -- to compensate for his short stature and pudginess. The result, as his astute biographers Judith and Barry Rubin write, "was his embodiment of a combination of roles: fighter, traditional patriarch, and typical Palestinian." Around 1960, Arafat co-founded Fatah, or "conquest," the political movement that would later come to be the dominant faction of the PLO. Aside from its aim to obliterate Israel, the group had no particular political vision: Islamists, nationalists, Communists and pan-Arabists were equally welcome. Instead, the emphasis was on violence: "People aren't attracted to speeches but to bullets," Arafat liked to say. In 1964, Fatah began training guerrillas in Syria and Algeria; in 1965, they launched their first attack within Israel, on a pumping station. But the bomb didn't detonate, and most of the other Fatah raids were also duds. From this experience, Arafat took the lesson to focus on softer targets, like civilians. So began the era of modern terrorism: the 1972 Munich massacre, the 1973 murder of American diplomats in Khartoum, the 1974 massacre of schoolchildren at Ma'alot, and so on. Yet as the atrocities multiplied, Arafat's political star rose. Partly this had to do with European cravenness in the face of the implied threat; partly with the Left's secret love affair with the authentic man of violence. Whatever the case, by 1980 Europe had recognized the PLO, with Arafat as its leader, as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people. The U.S. held out for another decade, but eventually it too caved in to international pressure under the first Bush administration. For the Palestinians themselves, however, this was not such a good development. If Arafat's violence against Jews and Israelis was shocking, his violence against fellow Palestinians was still worse. In the manner of other would-be national liberators, he did not look kindly on dissenters within his ranks. In 1987, for instance, Palestinian cartoonist Ali Naji Adhami was murdered on a London street; his crime was to have insinuated in a drawing that the ra'is was having an affair with a married woman. Once in power in Ramallah, the abuses became much worse. Critics of his government were routinely imprisoned and often tortured. In 1999, Muawiya Al-Masri, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, gave an interview to a Jordanian newspaper denouncing Arafat's corruption. He was later attacked by a gang of masked men and shot three times. (He survived.) Yet for all this, Arafat continued to ride the wave of international goodwill. The Europeans gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. The Clinton administration saw him as the one man who could "deliver" the Palestinians to make peace with Israel. The peace camp in Israel, championed by the late Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, more or less agreed: to them, Arafat was the thug who'd keep the Palestinian street quiet. Arafat strung them along, more or less, until his bluff was called by the Israeli peace offer at Camp David in July 2000. After that, there was just no point in keeping up appearances, and so came the intifada. It was a premeditated act. As Arafat had already told an Arab audience in Stockholm in 1996, "We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion . . . . We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem." It goes without saying that Arafat failed in that endeavor. The Israelis belatedly realized that the maximum they could concede was less than the minimum Arafat would accept, and refused to deal with him. For its part, the Bush administration cut off the international life support. In this sense, Arafat's illness -- so far undisclosed by his doctors -- can easily be diagnosed: He died of political starvation. What remains? Very little, I suspect. None of his deputies can possibly fill his shoes, which are those of a personality cult, not a political or national leader. There is nothing to unite Palestinians anymore, either: their loyalties to the cause will surely dissipate in his absence. Arafat was remarkable in that he sustained the illusion he created till the very end. But once the magician walks off the stage, the chimera vanishes. Mr. Stephens, former editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, is a member of the Journal's editorial board. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Camels, fleas, and princes exist everywhere." -- Persian proverb From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 05:45:14 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:45:14 -0500 Subject: Arafat: Where's his money? Message-ID: Mrs. Arafat keeps husband on life support Where's his money? Special to World Tribune.com GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT.COMThursday, November 4, 2004 RAMALLAH - Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has died. He was 75 years old. Israeli and Palestinian officials said Arafat died on Thursday in a military hospital in Paris. They said Arafat was deemed clinically dead, but is still attached to life support systems on the insistence of his wife, Suha. Palestinan Authority's Yasser Arafat: Abbas and Qurei sought to acquire his power to allocate money as the PA chairman departed for Paris. But as he boarded a Jordanian Air Force helicopter, Arafat refused. "I'm still alive, thank God, so don't worry," Arafat was quoted as saying. Reuters/Loay Abu Haykel "He is dead, but neither Arafat's wife nor the Palestinian leadership is ready to announce this," a PA official said. "The announcement could take place on Friday." The problem is that Arafat is still the only Palestinian official who can pay the bills. And it is unclear who, if anyone, has access to the estimated $2-3 billion in his personal Swiss bank accounts, according to a report in the current edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com. Even his wife is said to be unaware of how to access the funds. Arafat continues to hold the purse strings to the Palestinian finances. For the last decade, he has been the final, and often only word on payment to everybody from the suicide bomber to the janitor. Not a dime was paid without Arafat's okay. Before he left for Paris, Arafat approved a three-member emergency committee to operate the PA and PLO in his absence. Officials said Ahmed Qurei was meant to run the PA's daily affairs while Mahmoud Abbas was appointed acting chairman of the PLO. Palestine National Council chairman Salim Zaanoun, the third member of the committee, was said to be a symbolic figure. Abbas and Qurei sought to acquire Arafat's power to allocate money during the absence of the PA chairman. But as he boarded a Jordanian Air Force helicopter for Amman, Arafat refused. "I'm still alive, thank God, so don't worry," Arafat was quoted as saying. Israeli officials confirmed that Arafat died on Thursday, Middle East Newsline reported. They said Arafat was termed brain dead and physicians have stopped attending to him. For Palestinians, the main question is where is Arafat's money? Issam Abu Issa knows how Arafat appropriated and concealed money. Abu Issa was the founder and chairman of the Palestine International Bank from 1996 until he fled to Qatar in 2000. "Rather than use donor funds for their intended purposes, Arafat regularly diverted money to his own accounts," Abu Issa said in a report for Middle East Quarterly. "It is amazing that some U.S. officials still see the Palestinian Authority as a partner even after U.S. congressional records revealed authenticated PLO papers signed by Arafat in which he instructed his staff to divert donors' money to projects benefiting himself, his family and his associates." Arafat controls billions of dollars meant for the Palestinian people. In a word, he stole it, intelligence sources said, according to the Geostrategy-Direct report. His personal fortune has been estimated at between $2 and $3 billion, most of it in Swiss bank accounts. In 1997, the PA auditor's office said in its financial report that $326 million, or 43 percent of the annual budget, was "missing." The United States has been supporting former PA security chief Mohammed Dahlan as Arafat's successor. To his friends in the Bush administration, Dahlan, 43, has all the qualities for Arab leadership: a smooth talker and brutal cop. Arafat asked Dahlan to accompany him to Paris in a move designed to keep him out of the Gaza Strip and any coup plot. Another challenger has been Fatah Secretary-general Marwan Barghouti, sentenced to life in prison for a series of terrorist attacks. Barghouti, 44, has followers in the West Bank but does not appear to have the iron will necessary to face Arafat loyalists. Neither Israeli nor PA officials have been told much about Arafat's condition, and the only one authorized to issue information from his hospital bedside is the chairman's wife, Suha. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 05:45:17 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:45:17 -0500 Subject: Arafat's Swiss Bank Account Message-ID: ? - Middle East Quarterly - Fall 2004 FALL 2004 * VOLUME XI: NUMBER 4 Arafat's Swiss Bank Account by Issam Abu Issa Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority are known internationally for the violence between Israelis and Palestinians. As ruinous as that violence has been, another cancer permeates Arafat's administration; its name is corruption. From firsthand experience, I understand just how deep it is. Here is what I know. >From Optimism to Dismay On July 1, 1994, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman, Yasir Arafat, arrived triumphant in the Gaza Strip, watched by millions on television across the world. I was already in Ramallah, having traveled there from my family's exile in Qatar in the weeks after Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and President Bill Clinton had signed the Oslo accords in September 1993. Between 1994 and 1996, I and fellow Palestinian businessmen and intellectuals spent many days brainstorming to see what contributions we could make to a Palestinian state. My family was originally from Haifa, and I hoped to witness an Israeli withdrawal of forces and the birth of a democratic Palestinian state. It was a time of optimism among Palestinians. I gathered with friends and business partners around the television in Ramallah and watched Arafat's arrival in the Gaza Strip. In 1996, I founded the Palestine International Bank (PIB). Thousands of Palestinians in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the diaspora supported me financially or morally. My investors and I hoped to build a thriving economy in the newly autonomous PA areas. The PIB was truly Palestinian. Headquartered in Ramallah, it used mostly Palestinian capital, although it did receive support from other Arabs. All its reserves were kept inside Palestinian areas, and our shares traded actively on the Palestinian stock exchange. From nothing, we expanded our customer base to more than 15,500. Among those licensed by the newly established Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA), we were the largest bank in the Palestinian territories. I first met Arafat in April 1995 while trying to secure a banking license for the PIB. This meeting at his Gaza office, though brief, was cordial and encouraging. I thought things would go smoothly. But, as the PIB grew more popular, Arafat's inner circle and, specifically, Muhammad Rashid, a PA official, also known as Khalid Salam and often described as an economic advisor to Arafat and manager of a small percentage of PIB stocks, made it difficult for us to branch out and move forward.[1] The PA, which strictly controls Palestinian media, launched a negative media blitz against us in a bid to suppress our growth. The systematic effort to undermine PIB came after I refused to cede power to Muhammad Rashid.[2] Over the course of fifteen meetings, I became better acquainted with Arafat and grew increasingly concerned with his leadership style. Arafat and top PA officials did not respect the rule of law; many were corrupt. Arafat believed neither in separation of powers nor in checks and balances. His animosity toward accountability thwarted efforts to establish a responsible leadership. By 1996, Palestinians in the PA were saying they had traded one occupation for two, the one by Israel and the one by Arafat and his cronies. Rather than use donor funds for their intended purposes, Arafat regularly diverted money to his own accounts. It is amazing that some U.S. officials still see the Palestinian Authority as a partner even after U.S. congressional records revealed authenticated PLO papers signed by Arafat in which he instructed his staff to divert donors' money to projects benefiting himself, his family, and his associates.[3] How did Arafat's inner circle benefit? In 1994, he instructed the Palestinian Authority official in charge of finances, Muhammad Nashashibi, to fund secretly-to the tune of $50,000 per month-a Jerusalem publicity center for Raymonda Tawil, Arafat's mother-in-law, and Ibrahim Qar'in, an associate of Arafat's family.[4] He also ordered the investment in the computer companies of 'Ali and Mazzan Sha'ath, sons of Nabil Sha'ath, the PA's key negotiator in talks with Israel. Amin Haddad, Arafat's designated governor of the Palestine Monetary Authority, established several import-export companies acting as the front man for Arafat. The Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction financed these activities.[5] Thus, an organization meant to channel funds from donor countries like France and Germany became a mechanism by which to enrich Arafat. Arafat's men flagrantly displayed corruption. Arriving penniless in Gaza and the West Bank from exile in Tunisia, many PLO members amassed wealth, built villas in Gaza, Ramallah, Amman, and other places, and sent their children to the best schools in the United Kingdom and the United States. Hisham Makki, former head of the Palestine Broadcasting Services, assassinated in January 2001, earned a monthly salary of $1,500 but became a millionaire within a few years. Immediately after his assassination, Arafat froze Makki's personal bank accounts, estimated at $17 million. Makki was alleged to have taken bribes and sold government-owned equipment. However, it was rumored that he had a dispute with another PA official over the sharing of profits gained on illegal business transactions. His assailants, believed to be members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a shady group affiliated with Fatah, have never been caught.[6] Palestinians complained. The corruption of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority were blatant, but it appeared as if their status quo policies caused Israel and the United States to turn a blind eye. Diplomats downplayed flagrant corruption. In August 2001, Israel seized close to a half million documents from Palestinian offices in Jerusalem and elsewhere. Subsequent State Department reports on Palestinian governance and terrorism made little use or even mention of these documents.[7] European and U.S. policymakers assumed Arafat's critics to be against the Oslo accord. That may have been the case with members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but it was not the case among more liberal-minded Palestinians and investors like me. Arafat's corruption reached its peak in 1999 via the monster of "twelve security forces that nobody could control,"[8] in addition to the disorganized Tanzim (Fatah's militia). He played these services off each other, never allowing a subordinate to gain power. Between 1995 and 2000, Arafat's thugs beat up at least eleven elected members of the 88-member Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) because they voiced views in private and in public that were opposed to Arafat's on how the PA is run. The victims included PLC Human Rights Committee head Qaddoura Fares, Azmi ash-Shoaibi, Abdul Jawad Saleh, Hatem Abdul Kader, among others. Arafat wanted to terrorize and silence his critics. Indeed, one of his favorite slogans was Dimuqratiyat al-Banadiq (Democracy of the Guns). Arafat believes true power lies in force, whether directed against Israelis or against his own people. How popular is Arafat among Palestinians? At times of crisis, television crews show cheering Palestinians demonstrating and greeting their leader outside his Ramallah headquarters. In better days, Palestinian television regularly broadcasts pro-Arafat rallies across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But rallies aren't always what they seem. PA funds are used to buy loyalty and drum up support.[9] The PA hires crowds, stages promotional media campaigns, and distributes Arafat's pictures in the streets and alleys of the Palestinian territories. Rather than build a viable state, Arafat sought only to amass wealth and power. I myself heard his entourage and close associates refer to him as al-Arrab, meaning "the Godfather." At the end of 1997, when the PA Auditor's Office released its end of the year financial report, $326 million-43 percent of the annual budget-was "missing."[10] Only 57 percent of the budget was accounted for, spent on security forces (35 percent), office of the president (12.5 percent), and public allocation (9.5 percent). A special committee appointed by the PLC conducted an investigation and released a report accusing the PA of financial mismanagement. The findings of this panel exposed many official misgivings and abuses such as the use of government money for personal purposes by ministers Nabil Sha'ath, Talal Sidr, and Yasir Abd Rabboh; excessive expenditure on rent, salaries, and cost of travel in various ministries; receipt of bribes by ministry officials in the Ministry of Civil Affairs; illegal and unreported collection of taxes by the Ministry of Postal Services; granting illegal customs exemptions on cars, furniture, and material donations entering the PA, etc. It concluded that anyone involved in corruption should be taken to court, regardless of his position as minister, undersecretary, or director-general. The report demanded the ouster of at least two ministers: civil affairs minister Jamil at-Tarifi, and planning and international cooperation minister Nabil Sha'ath.[11] The PLC voted 51-1 in favor of dissolving Arafat's appointed 18-member limited self-rule cabinet. Sixteen ministers gave letters to Arafat signaling readiness to resign if asked. But Arafat confirmed the corrupt ministers in their positions rather than firing them. Additionally, PLC member Haider Abdel Shafi resigned due to "frustration with the performance of the PLC and with the executive's total lack of concern for its recommendations," and added, "The PLC is a marginal body and not a true parliament."[12] Even as the PLC committee was conducting its investigation, Arafat appointed Tayeb Abd al-Rahim, general secretary of the Presidential Office, to make a detailed inquiry into acts of corruption. His report remains secret. In practice the reports were meaningless. Since Arafat does not honor rule of law, decisions by auditors or the Palestinian Legislative Council fall by the wayside. Corruption continues. More than six years after the report's issuance, Tarifi remains in the cabinet. Rather than face charges, Sha'ath has won promotion. In another case, Salam Fayyad, the official in charge of finance, again said in August 2003 that there were many "irregularities" in the work of the Petroleum Authority, which has been siphoning money to secret bank accounts for years.[13] When Nablus legislator Mu'awyah al-Masri asked for details and figures about the revenues from oil products, Fayyad shocked the lawmakers by declaring, "Unfortunately, the documents related to the revenues from oil products-or how the money was used-can't be found. They have disappeared from the ministry."[14] The bank accounts of Harbi Sarsour, head of the Petroleum Authority, were frozen by the PA pending investigation into the scandal. But an initial investigation by Fayyad's office and the PLC showed that much of the oil profits had been deposited into a bank account under Arafat's name.[15] For sheer scale, few allegations match up to a deal allegedly struck between Muhammad Rashid, one of Arafat's economic advisors, and the late Yossi Ginosar, a former Israeli security officer. Ginosar's company, ARC, helped open Swiss bank accounts and deposit funds into them derived from both PA-financed companies and Israeli tax rebates to the Palestinian Authority.[16] Over a period of five years, approximately US$900 million was diverted to these accounts.[17] In early 2002, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research conducted a poll in which they surveyed 1,320 Palestinians. Eighty-five percent believed that there was corruption in PA institutions; only 16 percent gave a positive evaluation to democracy under the Palestinian Authority. Eighty-four percent expressed support for fundamental reforms in the PA.[18] Arafat Robs the Palestine International Bank On November 28, 1999, I became a victim of Arafat's abuse of power and flagrant disregard for the law. That's when, in direct breach of the law, Arafat issued a decree dissolving the Palestine International Bank's board of directors. The state-controlled Palestine Monetary Authority took over the bank, and with Arafat's blessing and written approval,[19] formed a new supervisory board of directors, including at least one convicted and Interpol-wanted felon. The unlawful takeover was a confiscation of my own, my shareholders', and my clients' private assets for Arafat's personal use. At the date of seizure, PIB total assets amounted to $105 million. Since the takeover, they have neither called for a shareholders' meeting nor disclosed the bank's balance sheet. The PLC investigated the seizure of the bank after I lodged a complaint in 2000 about the PIB's unlawful takeover. The PMA governor then threatened the bank's auditing firm, Talal Abu Ghazaleh International (TAGI), for revealing facts and figures that implicated the Palestinian leadership. The PMA governor took punitive measures against them but was unanimously condemned by the PLC.[20] Meanwhile, the PMA altered, hid, or destroyed bank records in their campaign to demonstrate malfeasance on my part retroactively. They supplied false information to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) group leading to a faulty audit. PWC seems to have taken for granted the accuracy of material that PMA governor Amin Haddad supplied, but he both provided some fraudulent documents and omitted others. The Qatari government, which has remained interested in the case because of my Qatari citizenship, rejected the PWC Report.[21] As they seized the bank, Arafat's security services harassed me. I fled to the Qatari mission in Gaza. Arafat's staff confiscated my private belongings, including my car, which Arafat took for himself.[22] My brother Issa accompanied a Qatari Foreign Ministry delegation to Gaza in order to resolve the stalemate. But, upon his arrival, Palestinian police acting on orders from Arafat arrested him. The PA said they would trade his freedom for mine. Only after the State of Qatar threatened Arafat with financial sanctions and severing of diplomatic ties did the PA give us free passage to leave Gaza for Qatar. In recent months, there has been some movement on my case. After months of investigation and deliberation, the Palestinian Legislative Council ruled all decisions taken by the PMA on the matter of PIB to be illegal, and hence subsequent actions to be illegitimate.[23] Chiefly because of his mismanagement of the PIB case and citing corruption, in May 2004, the PLC fired Amin Haddad from his position in the Palestinian Monetary Authority.[24] Hassan Khreisheh, Palestinian deputy parliament speaker, said, "This is part of the parliament's war against corruption in the PA."[25] He pointed out that Haddad had been pocketing unauthorized bonuses and profiting illegally from his management of the PIB. In spite of this, Arafat continues to back Haddad. As Khreisheh says, "Arafat resists any change, but pressure is building against him."[26] Arafat's support for Haddad is magnified in his August 5, 2004 letter to the PLC Reform Committee. He stated, "Firing the governor of the PMA would serve our enemies."[27] By "enemies," he was referring to, among others, myself and the deputy prime minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor ath-Thani, whom he mentioned more than three times before several PLC members. The PLC also indicted Arafat's relative, Jarrar al-Kudwa, who headed the General Monitoring Board that functions as the PA's Controller's Office, for corruption and misleading the investigation into the seizure of the PIB.[28] On June 18, 2004, the evening after the Jordanian daily Ad-Dustur published the Khreisheh interview cited above, Arafat ordered his Special Security Apparatus to arrest one of my sympathizers in Ramallah. Thus does Arafat continue to use the Palestinian security forces to harass and intimidate anyone who questions his pocketbook. It is no surprise then that he issued clear instructions to PA officials not to discuss openly the PIB issue. To him, the matter is an extremely important issue.[29] I have very little faith in the Palestinian judicial system, which is fully under Arafat's thumb. The PA disregards many court decisions unless they serve Arafat's purposes. Chief Justice Zuhair as-Sourani usually acts on Arafat's orders.[30] Arafat and Sourani handpicked Judge Talaat Taweel in order to pass the civil judgment against me in absentia. Taweel has been implicated in criminal cases.[31] Likewise, the PLC's Human Rights Committee condemned Sourani's illegal actions. Earlier, while an attorney general, Sourani issued an arrest warrant against me but failed to produce any legal basis before the PLC; he merely acted on Arafat's verbal instruction.[32] Arafat subsequently promoted him to chief justice. The continuing decay of the judicial system prompted the Union of Palestinian Lawyers to launch a short boycott of the Palestinian court system on June 28, 2004.[33] Union leader Hatem Abbas remains a vocal critical of judicial corruption. On September 26, 2004, he sent a strongly worded letter regarding Sourani's malpractice. And just recently, the PLC decided to suspend all sessions from September 7 to October 7, 2004, in an attempt to pressure Arafat to accelerate the approval of a reform package that he publicly adopted on August 18, 2004, and in protest against the Palestinian cabinet for not implementing the decisions and bills approved by the PLC.[34] The PLC wants to stress that the council's decisions have to be taken seriously. The Cement Scandal Abuse of power among Arafat's associates and Palestinian ministers is not the exception but rather the rule, as shown by the cement scandal: PA officials were accused of selling cement to Israel for use in constructing the West Bank wall and for Israeli construction in the disputed territories, then pocketing the money. On February 11, 2004, Israel's Channel 10 television reported that the Al-Quds Cement Factory supplied the cement for these purposes. Television footage showed cement mixers leaving company headquarters and driving to Maale Adumim, an Israeli settlement a few kilometers away. The family of Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia co-owns the Al-Quds company. When confronted by the allegations at a June 2004 press conference in Rome, Qureia denied personal involvement.[35] On June 9, 2004, the PLC held a debate in which some legislators accused Maher Masri, who held the Palestinian Authority's economy portfolio, of negligence and fraud. Council members called for an investigation on "corruption and tax evasion" charges.[36] Despite the charges, the debate itself was stilted. Palestinian security ejected PLC deputy and anti-corruption campaigner Jawad Saleh from the debate after the PLC speaker prevented nine deputies who had conducted the investigation from participating in the debate.[37] The scandal reportedly started with an Israeli-German businessman named Zeev Blenski. Blenski sought to import 120,000 tons of Egyptian concrete but, the Egyptian firms, under pressure from Egypt's anti-Israel lobby, refused to provide it. Blenski then turned to the Tarifi Ready Mix Cement Company, owned by Civil Affairs Minister Jamil Tarifi and his brother Jamal and two other Palestinian cement companies, Intisar Barakeh Company for General Trade and the Yusef Barakeh Company for General Trade.[38] Tarifi got Masri to sign an import permit. In fact, "senior PA officials had received bribes to issue import licenses to several importers and businessmen working on behalf of Israelis."[39] The permits directed the cement to be used to rebuild homes in the Rafah refugee camp, which had been razed by Israeli troops.[40] Instead, Blenski sold the cement to build parts of the separation fence, as well as new houses in Jewish communities in the West Bank and Gaza.[41] The PLC report concluded that the cement scandal went against PA objectives by indirectly contributing to the separation barrier but also by undermining the Palestinian treasury through the failure to collect tax on the imported cement. Lastly, because the Palestinians still operate under annual cement importation quotas, PA officials' greed undercut the Palestinian construction sector.[42] The PLC passed the report to the district attorney, but no action has yet been taken. Few Palestinians expect that action will be taken. Surprise in New York Pressure for reform is waning, and Palestinian democrats are caught in the middle. On February 13, 2004, I arrived at JFK International Airport in New York on my way to testify about PA corruption before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee. It was not my first trip to Washington; I have been there a half dozen times and have never faced any difficulties. My most recent visit had been a year before when I addressed both the Hudson Institute and The Foundation for the Defense of Democracy on democracy and Palestinian reform.[43] But, this trip was different. Instead of breezing through customs as I had in the past, agents from the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept me in custody for seventeen hours. At some point, I was cuffed at the wrists and ankles and repeatedly interrogated by agents who accused me of laundering $6 million from the PIB on behalf of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They let me go, but I now cannot gain entry to the United States. While dozens of academics signed petitions in support of a visa for Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, my case generated only silence in American universities.[44] Why the change? PA officials passed the charge to the State Department, which forwarded the information uncritically to Homeland Security.[45] This is ironic since the PIB leadership installed after my ouster was implicated in money laundering for Saddam Hussein.[46] The U.S. embassy in Doha has sought to rectify the matter, and I was allowed to reapply for a new visa; the case is still pending. But splashed across the Arabic press, the message was clear: Foggy Bottom supports Arafat and will turn a blind eye toward the concerns of dissidents.[47] It is counterproductive for Washington to indulge Arafat to the extent that they pull the rug out from anyone trying to make a change. Recent chaos in Gaza reinforces that Washington should not put all its eggs in one basket. But, how can Palestinian administration improve if the U.S. government allows Arafat to use its bureaucracy to do his dirty work? Accountability is key. Conclusion For four years, there has been violence and unmasked hostility between Israeli and Palestinians. Palestinian security forces and Israeli soldiers, who once jointly patrolled the streets of West Bank and Gaza towns, now fight each other. The conflict has taken a heavy toll on human life and on resources, both among Palestinians and Israelis. Israeli authorities and Palestinian organizations estimate the total dead at almost 4,000 and the wounded at more than 32,000.[48] The ailing Palestinian economy has declined 25 percent in 2003[49] while Israel has lost billions of dollars due to recession in the tourism sector and declining investor confidence. When I see cars blown apart by missiles, buses and cafes on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv destroyed, as well as destruction and death in Gaza and the West Bank, or pictures of grieving mothers and daughters, it is hard to believe that it has been only eleven years since the world celebrated the promise of the Oslo accords. I have problems with Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but Arafat's leadership for too long has used Israel as an excuse for failure to clean our own house. Arafat's failed leadership is one factor responsible for the evolution of Palestinian extremism and fundamentalism, as well as a culture of death and despair among the Palestinians. While Clinton feted Arafat at the White House as a peace partner, many of us who worked with or lived under Arafat disagreed, seeing him instead as a man exclusively concerned with power, money, and personal gratification. He heads a dictatorial regime staffed by gangsters.[50] I and increasing numbers of Palestinians also blame U.S. and Israeli officials who, in the wake of the Oslo accords, calculated that a Palestinian dictatorship would make a better negotiating partner than a Palestinian democracy.[51] They were very wrong. When growing pressure in the Palestinian territories forced Arafat to find a scapegoat for his political failure, mismanagement, and economic plunder, he turned his guns toward the Israelis. Reform and Arafat are like oil and water. Arafat instigates violence to deflect blame for his own corruption. No amount of dialogue or diplomatic dinners will change this fact. On the positive side, there are still persons who can move the peace-building process ahead. Many Palestinians seek change and welcome democratization and good governance. The Palestinians have the wealth, talent, and skills to carry out major functions for the needed transformation. Young economic leaders could spearhead the process since economic growth and development are fruits of peace. The Palestinian private sector and civil society organizations can be mobilized and empowered in order to foster the democratization process. With the right support, the Palestinians are capable of leading a real transformation towards a democratic state, one characterized by a separation of powers, the rule of law, a free market economy, and a strong civil society. America should not be discouraged by what is going on in the Middle East today. Signs of freedom and reform abound. But, Washington must look forward and not revert to the formulas of the past. Palestinians want not only to be freed from Israeli control but also, as importantly, to end the occupation by Arafat and his cronies. Issam Abu Issa, former chairman of the Palestine International Bank, currently resides in Qatar. He is founder of the Palestinian National Coalition for Democracy and Independence, a Palestinian democratic reform movement. [1] Interview with Palestinian deputy speaker, Ad-Dustur (Amman), June 17, 2004. [2] Lamis Andoni, "Palestine Banking Trouble," Middle East International, Jan. 28, 2000, p. 10. [3] "Scandalous PLO Letters Authenticated by Congressional Task Force," Manfred and Anne Lehmann Foundation (New York), at http://www.manfredlehmann.com/sieg429.html. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. [6] Khaled Abu Toameh, "Corrupt Palestinian Officials Said Fleeing in Fear for Their Lives," The Israel Report, Jan./Feb. 2001, at http://www.christianactionforisrael.org/isreport. [7] Matthew Levitt, "PLOCCA 2002: Empty Words," The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Peacewatch #384, May 24, 2002, at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/watch/Peacewatch/peacewatch2002/384.htm. [8] Mahmoud Abbas, ex-Palestinian prime minister, quoted in Newsweek, June 21, 2004. [9] Nathan Vardi, "Auditing Arafat," Forbes.com, Mar. 17, 2003, at http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0317/014.html. [10] The Washington Post, Dec. 2, 1998. [11] PLC Special Committee Report (The Corruption Report,) May 1997, at http://www.jmcc.org/politics/pna/plc/plccorup.htm; Stacey Lakind and Yigal Carmon, "The PA Economy," The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Inquiry and Analysis Series, no. 11, Jan. 8, 1999, at http://www.memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?Page=archives&ID=IA1199. [12] Arjan El Fassed, "Cement and Corruption," The Electronic Intifada, June 11, 2004, at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2813.shtml. [13] Khaled Abu Aker, "Where Has All the Oil Money Gone?" Arabic Media Internet Network, Aug. 11, 2003, at http://www.amin.org. [14] The Jerusalem Post, Dec. 3, 2003. [15] Ibid. [16] Ma'ariv (Tel Aviv), Dec. 2, 2002, Mar. 7, 2004. [17] Press briefing, International Monetary Fund, Dubai, UAE, Sept. 20, 2003, at http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2003/tr030920.htm. [18] The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Public Opinion Poll #5, Aug. 18-21, 2002, at http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2002/p5a.html. [19] Appointment letter signed by Arafat, May 24, 2003, Palestinian Court of First Instance. [20] PLC decision, no. 626/1/8, Oct. 25, 2003. [21] Letter, signed by Muhammad Jeham al-Kuwari, then-director of the Office of the Foreign Minister of Qatar, to the late Yassin Shareef, Palestinian ambassador to the state, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qatar, Aug. 30, 2000, at http://www.palestine77.net/kuwari.pdf. [22] Focus Magazine (Munich), Dec. 16, 2002, p. 208. [23] PLC decision, no. 642/1/8, Dec. 30, 2003. [24] Associated Press, May 5, 2004. [25] Ibid. [26] Newsweek International, Aug. 30, 2004. [27] "Report of the Special Reform Committee," PLC, Aug. 25, 2004, p. 6. [28] The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 18, 2004. [29] Tahseen Al Miqati, Palestinian ambassador to Qatar, quoted in Forbes (Arabic edition), May 2004, p. 88. [30] "Position Paper -Re: The Case of Palestine International Bank," Jan. 23, 2004, co-signed by four Palestine-based NGOs: the Mandela Institute for Human Rights, Al-Haq, Al-Quds Human Rights Center, Al-Dustour, at http://www.palestine77.net/ngoenglish.doc. [31] Ad-Dustur, June 17, 2004. [32] "Report of the Human Rights Committee," PLC, Dec. 2, 2003, p. 34. [33] Al-Quds (Jerusalem), June 27, 2004. [34] Palestine Media Center, Sept. 2, 2004, at http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=1422. [35] Arjan El Fassed, "Cement and Corruption," The Electronic Intifada, June 11, 2004, at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2813.shtml. [36] Rouhi Fatouh, PLC speaker, quoted in The Jerusalem Times, June 18, 2004. [37] The Jerusalem Post, June 21, 2004. [38] The Jewish Tribune (Toronto), June 17, 2004. [39] The Jerusalem Post, June 10, 2004. [40] The Jewish Week (New York), June 25, 2004. [41] Israel National News, June 13, 2004, at http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=63989. [42] The Jerusalem Times, June 17, 2004. [43] Feb. 6, 2003. [44] "Tariq Ramadan: American and European Scholars Respond," Campus-Watch.org, Sept. 23, 2004. [45] Amber Pawlik, "Exporting Freedom," May 9, 2004, at http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/p/pawlik/2004/pawlik050904.htm. [46] The Peninsula (Doha), Apr. 13, 2003. [47] "A Critic of Arafat Is Turned away at the U.S. Border-Reformer Detained at Kennedy Was Headed to Meet Congress," The New York Sun, Feb. 17, 2004; "Standing up to Arafat," The Fox News, Feb. 23, 2004; Adam Daifallah, "Arabs Who Believe in Democracy," The New York Sun, Feb. 23, 2004; "New York Authorities Detain PIB Chairman for 17 Hours at JFK Airport," Ar-Raya (Doha), Feb. 19, 2004; "Story of the Detention of PIB Chairman at the JFK Airport on Allegations of Financing Hamas and Jihad," Al-Hayat (London), Feb. 16, 2004. [48] Casualty updates from Palestinian Red Crescent Society, at http://www.palestinercs.org/crisistables/table_of_figures.htm, and Magen David Adom of Israel, at http://www.magendavidadom.org/casualtyitem.asp?Update=41. [49] Palestine Investment Promotion Agency, at http://www.pipa.gov.ps/economic_indicators.asp. [50] Rafiq an-Natsheh, former PLC speaker, quoted in Asharq (Doha), July 20, 2004. [51] Natan Sharansky, "From Helsinki to Oslo," Journal of International Security Affairs, Summer 2001, at http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/function/view/categoryid/1383/documentid/1690/history/3,2359,947,1383,1690; "Yasser Arafat: An Asset or a Burden. A Confidential Israeli Document," summarized by Mohammed Salah al-Attar, Nida Younis, trans., Ma'ariv, July 6, 2001, at http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2004%20News%20archives/Jan/13n/Yasser%20Arafat%20an%20asset%20or%20a%20burden,%20a%20confidential%20Israeli%20document%20By%20Mohammed%20Salah%20Al-Attar%20and%20Nida%20Younis.htm. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 05:49:05 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:49:05 -0500 Subject: Cryptography Research Takes Aim at Content Pirates Message-ID: Yahoo! Finance Source: Cryptography Research, Inc. Cryptography Research VP Benjamin Jun Takes Aim at Content Pirates Friday November 5, 6:02 am ET Discusses Technology Trends and Responses at Upcoming RSA Conference Europe 2004 SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Despite piracy's high public profile as a threat to intellectual property owners, surprisingly little has been done to understand the range of technical solutions that are feasible, according to security expert Benjamin Jun. With piracy plaguing deployments of pay TV, optical media, console video games and other content, Jun, vice president of engineering at Cryptography Research, Inc., believes content publishers facing these issues have a number of tools and technologies at their disposal to take aim at the pirates, and will discuss solutions and the findings of his recent research on piracy in his seminar on Friday, November 5 at the RSA Conference Europe 2004 being held in Barcelona, Spain. According to Jun, pirates will grow bolder and more effective with advances in CPU processing power, Internet bandwidth and hard drive storage. Although piracy cannot be stopped completely, Jun believes a combination of proactive and reactive security approaches can mitigate the risk and reduce losses to survivable levels. Content publishers facing piracy can apply methods for high-assurance design that anticipate attacks and employ architectures that enable a response after attacks happen. Jun's talk discusses recent piracy trends, describes industry techniques and presents current research in content security. "Although numerous products and technologies have been advertised as solutions to the problem of piracy, most commercial security systems fail catastrophically once an implementation is compromised, making them inappropriate solutions for deployment as part of a major standard, said Jun. "Piracy, like credit card fraud and computer virus security, is a problem that cannot be solved completely, and requires a flexible solution that combines programmable security and 'smart content' with risk management techniques such as forensic marking and attack response capabilities." Proactive security combines tamper resistance with high-assurance design to combat known security vulnerabilities. Reactive systems provide effective tools for responding to piracy after a problem develops. These results are findings of the Cryptography Research Content Security Initiative, a CRI-sponsored, multi-year research effort focusing on understanding and controlling piracy, technology trends in consumer electronics and next-generation applied techniques for high-assurance security. "Content providers must face next-generation pirates by selecting technology that avoids a repeat of painful past lessons," said Carter Laren, senior security architect at Cryptography Research. "We are proud that results from our Content Security Research Initiative are helping leading companies secure their most valuable content." Benjamin Jun's talk, "Piracy: Technology Trends and Responses," part of the Implementers Educational Track at the RSA Conference Europe 2004, will be presented on Friday, November 5, at 11:00 a.m. at the Princesa Sofia Hotel in Barcelona, Spain. Benjamin Jun is a vice president of engineering at Cryptography Research, where he heads the consulting practice and the company's Content Security Research Initiative. He leads engineering groups in the design, evaluation and repair of high-assurance security modules for software, ASIC and embedded systems. Ben holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Stanford University, where he is a Mayfield Entrepreneurship Fellow. About Cryptography Research, Inc. Cryptography Research, Inc. provides consulting services and technology to solve complex security problems. In addition to security evaluation and applied engineering work, CRI is actively involved in long-term research in areas including tamper resistance, content protection, network security and financial services. The company has a broad portfolio of patents covering countermeasures to differential power analysis and other vulnerabilities, and is committed to helping companies produce secure smart cards and other tamper-resistant devices. Security systems designed by Cryptography Research engineers annually protect more than $60 billion of commerce for wireless, telecommunications, financial, digital television and Internet industries. For additional information or to arrange a consultation with a member of the technical staff, please contact Jen Craft at 415-397-0123, ext. 329 or visit www.cryptography.com. Source: Cryptography Research, Inc. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 06:09:12 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:09:12 -0500 Subject: Blue Democrats Lost Red America Message-ID: The Wall Street Journal November 5, 2004 WONDER LAND By DANIEL HENNINGER Blue Democrats Lost Red America Back in 1965 November 5, 2004; Page A12 "And you tell me over, and over, and over again my friend Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction." --Vietnam War Protest Song, 1965 How did the 2004 election map of the United States come to look like a color-field painting by Barnett Newman? In fact, if you adjust the map's colors for votes by county (as at the Web sites for CNN and USA Today), even the blue states turn mostly red. Pennsylvania is blue, but between blue Philadelphia and Pittsburgh every county in the state is red. California, except for the coastline, is almost entirely red. This didn't happen last Tuesday. The color-coding of the 2004 election began around 1965 in the politics of the Vietnam era. The Democratic Party today is the product of a generational shift that began in those years. The formative years of the northern wing of the Democratic Old Guard go back to World War II. It included political figures like Tip O'Neill, Pat Moynihan and Lane Kirkland. It was men such as these whose experiences, both political and personal, informed and shaped the Democrats before the mid-'60s. Over time the party passed into the hands of a generation, now in their 50s and early 60s, whose broad view of America and its politics was formed as young men and women opposing the Vietnam War. That would include the party's current leading lights -- John Kerry, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi. And its most influential strategists, such as Bob Shrum, Mary Beth Cahill and James Carville. The old industrial unions, whose members went over to Ronald Reagan, gave way to the more dependable public-employee unions run by John Sweeney and Gerald McEntee. These Baby Boomers -- the generation of John Kerry, Al Gore and Bill and Hillary Clinton -- transformed the world view of the Democrats, on everything from foreign policy to cultural issues. This new ethos -- instinctively oppositional, aggressively secular -- sank its roots deep on the East and West coasts, but it never really spread into the rest of the country, then or now. Early on, the military became a focus. Democrats belonging to the World War II generation believed that one "served." There was a nonpartisan pact of reverence for the services. After Vietnam, Democratic partisans worked hard, and successfully, to eradicate ROTC from elite, coastal campuses and to adopt an ethos that no longer revered the services, but held them suspect of doing harm. Bill Clinton's relations with the military were strained. John Kerry tried to use his service biography to erase the Vietnam-era legacy of Democratic opposition to things military. It didn't work. Expressed emotion matters greatly for this generation. The most notable phenomenon of the 2004 election was widespread liberal "hatred" of George Bush. Many wondered what sleeping volcano brought this lava to the surface. It came from the style of protest politics born in the 1960s. A famous liberal political phrase then was "the personal is political." Letting oneself become emotionally unhinged during a protest, as at Columbia, Harvard and Berkeley, became a litmus of authenticity. It became the norm, and it still is. But again, only for people who scream themselves blue. Another phrase heard often in the campaign just ended was, "I'm frightened." Admiration for childlike fears in politics received approval in 1970 from Charles Reich's bestseller "The Greening of America," a paean to youth and "a new and liberated individual." Reich's book, by the way, also popularized the notion then that something called the "Corporate State" was blotting out the Aquarian sunshine. This is the mindset that just produced the Democrats' weird obsession with "Halliburton," as if anyone would care beyond the people who were long ago baptized into the blue faith. But the politics of the Vietnam generation wasn't just about Vietnam. It was about changing everything, most notably the culture. This generation really opened up the culture. The old pre-Vietnam strictures on behavior and comportment -- Tip O'Neill's old Boston Catholic world of Mass on Sunday and at least a working if not functioning knowledge of the Baltimore catechism -- got hammered down till the moral landscape became flat and fast. Now you can drive anything at all into theaters, music or movies. This post-Vietnam culture of non-restraint, now almost 40 years old, produced Whoopi Goldberg's double-entendre jokes about George Bush's name at Radio City Music Hall, the Massachusetts Supreme Court's sudden decision on gay marriage, and hard-to-defend support for partial-birth abortion. George Bush, age 58, was a reproach. He personifies everything they have fought since they drove LBJ and Richard Nixon out of politics. And this week they are trying to discover why most of the people who live between the Hudson River and Hollywood Freeway don't agree with them. Expect documentaries soon about Christian evangelicals on the Discovery Channel. There is no hope that the Vietnam generation braintrust who just lost this election will ever understand Red America. Until someone in the party recognizes this, the tides of demography will inexorably erode the blue islands that remain on the map. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From chris.kuethe at gmail.com Fri Nov 5 08:37:00 2004 From: chris.kuethe at gmail.com (Chris Kuethe) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:37:00 -0700 Subject: Your source code, for sale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <91981b3e041105083727015040@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 10:01:41 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: > ... > My photo-bundle receives the releases and opens, and then shoots off a > message that activates the pre-release on your end, giving you the cash. > > Is a 3rd party necessary here? I don't see it, but then again I could be > wrong. What if I block the outbound "release the money" message after I unbundle the images. Sure, I've already committed my money, but you can't get to it. In effect I've just ripped you off, because I have usable product and you don't have usable money. The proof of delivery comes in handy here, so that as soon as I can prove to the bank that my product has arrived within your administrative area, they'll pay me. And the bank sends me a key to unlock the product as soon as it sends you the money. And what *GUARANTEE* do I have that the blob of bits you sent me with the Geri Ryan photos on the outside isn't something from goatse.cx or tubgirl...? Let's say there are 24000 items in the tarball of the IOS code. Do you want to pay $24K for all of them (once) or $12K for half of them (twice) or $1 per file or directory (24000 times)? Do you want to pay per committed bit or character? How can you protect yourself from me committing to sell you /dev/random? I'm sure everyone has this bit committed to memory, but the beginning of Applied Crypto, chapter 2 says: ============================================= Protocols have other characteristics as well: -- Everyone involved in the protocol must know the protocol and all of the steps to follow in advance. -- Everyone involved in the protocol must agree to follow it. -- The protocol must be unambiguous; each step must be well defined and there must be no chance of a misunderstanding. -- The protocol must be complete; there must be a specified action for every possible situation. ... The whole point of using cryptography in a protocol is to prevent or detect eavesdropping and cheating. ============================================= That last property is critical: what does the protocol do when someone isn't playing by the rules? Of course, there's nothing that crypto can do to prevent you from selling me garbage, only the fact that you intentionally did so can be proven. Comment about bribing the dockside worker at the shipping line deleted. -- GDB has a 'break' feature; why doesn't it have 'fix' too? From eugen at leitl.org Fri Nov 5 00:49:37 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:49:37 +0100 Subject: Finding Galt's Gulch (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20041104200518.V57518@ubzr.zsa.bet> References: <20041104200518.V57518@ubzr.zsa.bet> Message-ID: <20041105084937.GT1457@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 08:05:34PM -0600, J.A. Terranson wrote: > Where does one go today, if they are unwilling to participate in the > Failed Experiment? (BTW: No, Lichtenstein does not accept immigrants, and > yes, I have reverified this recently). Go East. Fortunes are made there. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From ben at algroup.co.uk Fri Nov 5 01:54:46 2004 From: ben at algroup.co.uk (Ben Laurie) Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 09:54:46 +0000 Subject: Your source code, for sale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418B4DE6.7060009@algroup.co.uk> Tyler Durden wrote: > Hum. > So my newbie-style question is, is there an eGold that can be verified, > but not accessed, until a 'release' code is sent? proof-of-delivery protocols might help (but they're patented, as I discovered when I reinvented them a few years back). > In other words, say I'm buying some hacker-ed code and pay in egold. I > don't want them to be able to 'cash' the gold until I have the code. > Meanwhile, they will want to see that the gold is at least "there", even > if they can't cash it yet. > > Is there a way to send a 'release' to an eGold (or other) payment? > Better yet, a double simultaneous release feature makes thing even more > interesting. Simultaneous release is (provably?) impossible without a trusted third party. I think this is one of the interesting applications of capabilities. Using them, you can have a TTP who is ignorant of what is running - you and your vendor agree some code that the TTP will run, using capability based code. In your case, this code would verify the eGold payment and the code (difficult to do this part with certainty, of course) and release them when both were correct. Because of the capabilities, the TTP could run the code without fear, and you would both know that it performed the desired function, but neither of you could subvert it. Cheers, Ben. -- ApacheCon! 13-17 November! http://www.apachecon.com/ http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.thebunker.net/ "There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 07:01:10 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:01:10 -0500 Subject: Corporate governance goals impossible - RSA Message-ID: The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Business ; Management ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/04/rsa_redux/ Corporate governance goals impossible - RSA By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk) Published Thursday 4th November 2004 16:43 GMT Companies are struggling to cope with tighter corporate governance regimes, which might even work against the goal of achieving improved IT security they are partly designed to promote. The need to comply with requirements such as data protection, Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II and other corporate governance reforms is tying up IT managers in red tape, according to a banking security expert. "Recent legislation is having a negative impact on risk management," said Michael Colao, director of Information Management at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. In some cases, the law has made IT managers legally responsible for adherence to corporate governance rules. Colao says that this may not necessarily be a good thing. "CIOs are now relying on convoluted processes rather than using sound business judgement based on years of experience. A process is easier to defend in court than personal judgement. This means that in many cases unnecessarily cautious decisions are being taken because the CIO is focusing on their own personal liability, rather than what is best for the business," he said.? Different implementations of the European Data Protection Directive in different countries are creating a headache for multinational firms, according to Colao. "This legislation was brought in as part of the EU common market and was supposed to provide clarity and harmony across Europe. Because each country implements legislation in very different ways, the result is a very fragmented and disjointed approach which causes all sorts of problems, particularly for global organisations," he said. Colao made his comments at the Axis Action Forum, a meeting of IT directors sponsored by RSA Security, in Barcelona this week. RSA Security said differences in European legislation highlighted by Colao were a real problem for its clients. Tim Pickard, strategic marketing director at RSA Security EMEA, said: "The nature of implementation of EU directives in member states means that it is almost impossible for today's global CIO to be fully compliant and is therefore likely to be breaking the law in at least one member state." Business managers becoming fed up with FUD In a separate study, more than a third of the 30 delegates to the Axis Action Forum admitted that their Board had never asked for an update on security or implications of security breaches. The finding suggests widespread boardroom indifference to security issues despite the high profile security has been given in the media and by numerous industry initiatives. Firms only take security seriously in the aftermath of attacks, according to one delegate. Part of the reason could be that business managers are becoming inured to alarmist security pitches. Simon Linsley, head of consultancy and development, Philips said: "For years we have had to go to the Board with messages that create the Fear of God. We can no longer rely on these doom and gloom messages - we have to go to the Board with solutions that add value to the business." The Axis Action Forum attended by more than 30 CIOs, IT directors and heads of security from a range of medium to large businesses. . Related stories UK corporate governance bill to cost millions (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/08/companies_bill_it_costs/) Hackers cost UK.biz billions (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/28/dti_security_survey/) IT voices drowned in corporate governance rush (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/22/it_in_corporate_governance/) Big.biz struggles against security threats (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/27/netsec_security_survey/) ) Copyright 2004 -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jya at pipeline.com Fri Nov 5 10:01:23 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 10:01:23 -0800 Subject: Blue Democrats Lost Red America In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A shallow, stale spin, unduly sanctimonious, and highly presumptive of the legitimacy of election reports. Same vapid shit to fill news void would have been written if Kerry squeaked by. From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Fri Nov 5 07:01:41 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 10:01:41 -0500 Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: Ben Laurie made a lot of useful points. However,... >Simultaneous release is (provably?) impossible without a trusted third >party. I don't think I believe this. Or at least, I don't think it's true to the extent necessary to make the original application impossible. Consider: I send you money for naked photos of Geri Ryan (that Borg chick with the ASS-KICKING hips). The money is "encapsulated"...you can its there, but you can't get at it. You send me encapsulated photos, perhaps with thumbnails on the outside. I see the thumbnails and click to send the pre-release. You see the pre-release arrive and click the release for the photos. My photo-bundle receives the releases and opens, and then shoots off a message that activates the pre-release on your end, giving you the cash. Is a 3rd party necessary here? I don't see it, but then again I could be wrong. -TD _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From hal at finney.org Fri Nov 5 10:12:48 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:12:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: <20041105181248.7F09757E2A@finney.org> Enzo Michelangeli writes: > In the world of international trade, where mutual distrust between buyer > and seller is often the rule and there is no central authority to enforce > the law, this is traditionally achieved by interposing not less than three > trusted third parties: the shipping line, the opening bank and the > negotiating bank. Interesting. In the e-gold case, both parties have the same bank, e-gold ltd. The corresponding protocol would be for the buyer to instruct e-gold to set aside some money which would go to the seller once the seller supplied a certain receipt. That receipt would be an email return receipt showing that the seller had sent the buyer the content with hash so-and-so, using a cryptographic email return-receipt protocol. > > You could imagine a trusted third party who would inspect the code and > > certify it, saying "the source code with hash XXX appears to be > > legitimate Cisco source code". Then they could send you the code bit > > by bit and incrementally show that it matches the specified hash, > > using a crypto protocol for gradual release of secrets. You could > > simultaneously do a gradual release of some payment information in the > > other direction. > > But it's hard to assess the value of partially-released code. If the > gradual transfer bits-against-cents is aborted, what is left to the buyer > is likely to be unusable, whereas the partial payment still represents > good value. Actually you can arrange it so that neither the partially-released code nor the partially-transferred ecash is of any value until the whole transfer finishes. For example, send the whole thing first in encrypted form, then release the encryption keys bit-by-bit. If someone aborts the protocol early, the best each side can do is a brute force search over the untransferred bits to try to find the key to unlock the data they received. > A more general issue is that source code is not a commodity, and > intellectual property is not "real" property: so the traditional "cash on > delivery" paradigm just doesn't work, and looking for protocols > implementing it kind of moot. If the code is treated as trade secret, > rather than licensed, an anonymous buyer may make copies and resell them > on the black market more than recovering his initial cost, at the same > time undercutting your legitimate sales (see e.g. the cases of RC4 and > RC2). This can cause losses order of magnitude larger than refusing to pay > for his copy. That's a good point. Maybe you could use some kind of DRM or trusted computing concept to try to force the buyer to lock up his received data. For source code that would be pretty difficult though, it needs to be handled in flexible ways. Hal From hal at finney.org Fri Nov 5 10:18:22 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:18:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: <20041105181822.77DE857E2A@finney.org> Michael_Heyman writes: > Finney, Hal (CR): > > The problem is that if the source code you are purchasing is > > bogus, or if the other side doesn't come through, you're > > screwed because you've lost the value of the torn cash. The > > other side doesn't gain anything by this fraud, but they harm > > you, and if they are malicious that might be enough. > > > Quick fix for seller incentive: the seller rips some amount of their own > cash in such a way that they cannot recover it unless the buyer provides > the remainder of the buyer's ripped cash. Yes, I'm looking at ideas like this for ecash gambling, but you have a who-goes-first problem. One side or the other has to "rip" their own cash first, and then the other side can just go away and leave the first side screwed. The act of ripping cash is relatively atomic and involves a transaction with the ecash mint, so they can't both do it at the same time. I guess the best fix is for each side to rip a little bit of cash at a time, so that the guy who goes first only loses a trivial amount if the other side aborts. Then after a few rounds both sides are sunk pretty deep and both have a strong incentive to complete the transaction. Hal From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 07:25:30 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:25:30 -0500 Subject: The oldest fraud Message-ID: Townhall.com The oldest fraud Thomas Sowell (back to web version) | Send November 5, 2004 Election frauds are nothing new and neither are political frauds in general. The oldest fraud is the belief that the political left is the party of the poor and the downtrodden. The election results in California are only the latest evidence to give the lie to that belief. While the state as a whole went for Kerry, 55 percent versus 44 percent for Bush, the various counties ranged from 71 percent Bush to 83 percent Kerry. The most affluent counties were where Kerry had his strongest support. In Marin County, where the average home price is $750,000, 73 percent of the votes went for Kerry. In Alameda County, where Berkeley is located, it was 74 percent Kerry. San Francisco, with the highest rents of any major city in the country, gave 83 percent of its votes to Kerry. Out where ordinary people live, it was a different story. Thirty-six counties went for Bush versus 22 counties for Kerry, and usually by more balanced vote totals, though Bush went over 70 percent in less fashionable places like Lassen County and Modoc County. If you have never heard of them, there's a reason. It was much the same story on the votes for Proposition 66, which would have limited the "three strikes" law that puts career criminals away for life. Affluent voters living insulated lives in places well removed from high-crime neighborhoods have the luxury of worrying about whether we are not being nice enough to hoodlums, criminals and terrorists. They don't like the "three strikes" law and want it weakened. While most California voters opposed any weakening of that law, a majority of the voters in the affluent and heavily pro-Kerry counties mentioned wanted us to stop being so mean to criminals. This pattern is not confined to California and it is not new. There were limousine liberals before there were limousines. The same pattern applies when you go even further left on the political spectrum, to socialists and communists. The British Labor Party's leader in the heyday of its socialist zealotry was Clement Attlee, who grew up in a large home with servants -- and this was not the only home his family owned. Meanwhile, Margaret Thatcher's family ran a grocery store and lived upstairs over it. While the British Labor Party was affiliated with labor unions, it was the affluent and the intellectuals in the party who had the most left-wing ideologies and the most unrealistic policies. In the years leading up to World War II, the Labor Party was for disarmament while Hitler was arming Germany to the teeth across the Channel. Eventually, it was the labor union component of the party that insisted on some sanity, so that Britain could begin preparing to defend itself militarily -- not a moment too soon. When Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, they were a couple of spoiled young men from rich families. All their talk about the working class was just talk, but it appealed to other such young men who liked heady talk. As Engels himself put it, when the Communist group for whom the Manifesto was written was choosing delegates, "a working man was proposed for appearances sake, but those who proposed him voted for me." This may have been the first rigged election of the Communist movement but it was certainly not the last. All sorts of modern extremist movements, such as the Weathermen in the United States or the Bader-Meinhof gang in Germany, have attracted a disproportionate number of the affluent in general and the intellectuals in particular. Such people may speak in the name of the downtrodden but they themselves are often people who have time on their hands to nurse their pet notions about the world and their fancies about themselves as leaders of the poor, saviors of the environment or whatever happens to be the Big Deal du jour. Osama bin Laden is not someone embittered by poverty. He is from a very rich family and has had both the time to nurse his resentments of the West and the money to organize terrorists to lash out in the only way that can give them any significance. The belief that liberal, left-wing or extremist movements are for the poor may or may not be the biggest fraud but it is certainly the oldest. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it." -- Thomas Sowell From taral at taral.net Fri Nov 5 10:12:54 2004 From: taral at taral.net (Taral) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:12:54 -0600 Subject: Your source code, for sale In-Reply-To: <20041104230115.6A1CD57E2A@finney.org> References: <20041104230115.6A1CD57E2A@finney.org> Message-ID: <20041105181254.GA8871@yzma.clarkk.net> On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 03:01:15PM -0800, "Hal Finney" wrote: > Another idea along these lines is gradual payment for gradual release > of the goods. You pay 10% of the amount and they give you 10% of the > source code. You pay another 10% and you get the next 10% of the source, > and so on. (Or it could be nonlinear; maybe they give out half the code > for free, but the final 10% requires a large payment.) The idea is that > you can sample and make sure they do appear to have the real thing with > a fairly small investment. > > If there is some mechanism for the seller to have a reputation (like > Advogato's perhaps, with some spoofing immunity) then the problem is > easier; the seller won't want to screw buyers because it hurts his rep. > In that case it may be reasonable to ask the buyer to pay in advance, > perhaps using the partial payment system just discussed. The mojonation file sharing system had an implementation like this originally... -- Taral This message is digitally signed. Please PGP encrypt mail to me. A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail? -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 09:42:11 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:42:11 -0500 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue Message-ID: Here ya go, John and Bill, Knock yourselves out... :-) Cheers, RAH ------- Slate politics Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue The unteachable ignorance of the red states. By Jane Smiley Updated Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004, at 3:24 PM PT The day after the election, Slate's political writers tackled the question of why the Democratic Party-which has now lost five of the past seven presidential elections and solidified its minority status in Congress-keeps losing elections. Chris Suellentrop says that John Kerry was too nuanced and technocratic, while George W. Bush offered a vision of expanding freedom around the world. William Saletan argues that Democratic candidates won't win until they again cast their policies the way Bill Clinton did, in terms of values and moral responsibility. Timothy Noah contends that none of the familiar advice to the party-move right, move left, or sit tight-seems likely to help. Slate asked a number of wise liberals to take up the question of why Americans won't vote for the Democrats. Click here to read previous entries. I say forget introspection. It's time to be honest about our antagonists. My predecessors in this conversation are thoughtful men, and I honor their ideas, but let's try something else. I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million-my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.) Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. There used to be a kind of hand-to-hand fight on the frontier called a "knock-down-drag-out," where any kind of gouging, biting, or maiming was considered fair. The ancestors of today's red-state voters used to stand around cheering and betting on these fights. When the forces of red and blue encountered one another head-on for the first time in Kansas Territory in 1856, the red forces from Missouri, who had been coveting Indian land across the Missouri River since 1820, entered Kansas and stole the territorial election. The red news media of the day made a practice of inflammatory lying-declaring that the blue folks had shot and killed red folks whom everyone knew were walking around. The worst civilian massacre in American history took place in Lawrence, Kan., in 1862-Quantrill's raid. The red forces, known then as the slave-power, pulled 265 unarmed men from their beds on a Sunday morning and slaughtered them in front of their wives and children. The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are-they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind. Here is how ignorance works: First, they put the fear of God into you-if you don't believe in the literal word of the Bible, you will burn in hell. Of course, the literal word of the Bible is tremendously contradictory, and so you must abdicate all critical thinking, and accept a simple but logical system of belief that is dangerous to question. A corollary to this point is that they make sure you understand that Satan resides in the toils and snares of complex thought and so it is best not try it. Next, they tell you that you are the best of a bad lot (humans, that is) and that as bad as you are, if you stick with them, you are among the chosen. This is flattering and reassuring, and also encourages you to imagine the terrible fates of those you envy and resent. American politicians ALWAYS operate by a similar sort of flattery, and so Americans are never induced to question themselves. That's what happened to Jimmy Carter-he asked Americans to take responsibility for their profligate ways, and promptly lost to Ronald Reagan, who told them once again that they could do anything they wanted. The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do-they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable. Third, and most important, when life grows difficult or fearsome, they (politicians, preachers, pundits) encourage you to cling to your ignorance with even more fervor. But by this time you don't need much encouragement-you've put all your eggs into the ignorance basket, and really, some kind of miraculous fruition (preferably accompanied by the torment of your enemies, and the ignorant always have plenty of enemies) is your only hope. If you are sufficiently ignorant, you won't even know how dangerous your policies are until they have destroyed you, and then you can always blame others. The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey-workers and consumers. The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now-Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant. Lots of Americans like and admire them because lots of Americans, even those who don't share those same qualities, don't know which end is up. Can the Democrats appeal to such voters? Do they want to? The Republicans have sold their souls for power. Must everyone? Progressives have only one course of action now: React quickly to every outrage-red state types love to cheat and intimidate, so we have to assume the worst and call them on it every time. We have to give them more to think about than they can handle-to always appeal to reason and common sense, and the law, even when they can't understand it and don't respond. They cannot be allowed to keep any secrets. Tens of millions of people didn't vote-they are watching, too, and have to be shown that we are ready and willing to fight, and that the battle is worth fighting. And in addition, we have to remember that threats to democracy from the right always collapse. Whatever their short-term appeal, they are borne of hubris and hatred, and will destroy their purveyors in the end. Jane Smiley is the author of many novels and essays. She lives in California. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 10:00:13 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:00:13 -0500 Subject: When A Pencil And Paper Makes Sense Message-ID: Forbes Ten O'Clock Tech When A Pencil And Paper Makes Sense Arik Hesseldahl, 11.05.04, 10:00 AM ET Thank goodness, it's over. Sometime around 4:30 A.M. Wednesday I went to bed, not the least bit uncertain that George W. Bush had been re-elected. But the one thing during this election cycle about which I have been uncertain is electronic voting. Florida in 2000 was a mess, and in reaction, some states and counties have turned to newfangled electronic voting machines, thinking that computer technology is the answer to a voting system that has started to creak under pressure. It seems that despite much worry about a repeat of Florida in other states, voting has gone pretty smoothly. Electronic voting methods are getting high marks. Of the 27,500 voting problems reported to the Verified Voting Project, a San Francisco-based group that monitored the election for voting problems, less than 6% of the issues reported stemmed from electronic voting machines. Election officials in states like Nevada, Georgia and Hawaii gave electronic voting systems a try. There were some problems: a memory card on an electronic voting machine in Florida failed; five machines in Reno, Nev., malfunctioned, causing lines to back up. Overall voter turnout was high. The Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, a nonprofit, nonpartisan outfit based in Washington, D.C., estimated that 120.2 million people, or 59.6% of those eligible to vote, cast ballots in this election, which would be an improvement of 5% and 15 million people, compared with the 2000 elections, and would make 2004's turnout the highest since 1968. Still, that's not as high as voter participation in my home state of Oregon, where 1.7 million people, or nearly 82% of those eligible, voted. In Oregon, voters cast their votes from home rather than going to a polling place. They submit their ballots by mail. The state abolished polling places in 1998 and has been voting entirely by mail ever since. Voters get their ballots roughly two weeks before election day. This year some were delayed because of an unexpectedly high number of voter registrations. Ballots must be received by county elections offices by 8 P.M. on the day of the election. Drop boxes are located throughout the state, as well. Voting should indeed take time and effort. It's undoubtedly important. But I like Oregon's common-sense approach. Voting from the comfort of your own home eliminates the inherent disincentive that comes from having to stand on a long line, for example. It's pretty simple. Oregon voters fill out their ballots using a pencil, just like those standardized tests everyone took in high school. If they want to write in a candidate, the ballot allows for that, too. I thought of this as I stood for about 45 minutes in a long, cold line at 6:30 A.M. to vote in my neighborhood in New York's Upper East Side. Throughout the day I heard reports from around the country of people who had to stand in line for as long as eight hours so they could vote, and I wondered how many others just threw up their hands in frustration because they had someplace else to be. The mail-in ballot also gives the voter a little time to consider his or her choice. Too often, voters will enter a voting booth knowing a few of the people they intend to vote for, but read about some ballot initiative or amendment for the first time. Rather than having to make a snap decision in the voting booth, having a ballot handy at home can give voters time to educate themselves and make a more informed decision. Sometimes, the best solution isn't a computer at all, but a good old-fashioned pencil and paper. Click here for more Ten O'Clock Tech Columns -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jya at pipeline.com Fri Nov 5 13:05:22 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 13:05:22 -0800 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well, this is just commie propaganda. Bob, you know this is against list rules, everybody knows what's right, stop blue-baiting, you fucking nazi. From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 10:15:48 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:15:48 -0500 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 1:05 PM -0800 11/5/04, John Young wrote: >Bob, you know this is against list rules, everybody knows >what's right, stop blue-baiting, you fucking nazi. :-) Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 10:35:27 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:35:27 -0500 Subject: Your source code, for sale In-Reply-To: <20041105181822.77DE857E2A@finney.org> References: <20041105181822.77DE857E2A@finney.org> Message-ID: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 10:18 AM -0800 11/5/04, Hal Finney wrote: >Yes, I'm looking at ideas like this for ecash gambling, but you have >a who-goes-first problem. Whenever we talk about financial applications, where the assets represented by one bearer certificate are exchanged for those represented by another, what's really happening is a redeem-reissue process anyway. Since it's the underwriters' reputations you're trusting anyway, we've always assumed that there would be communication between the underwriters in order to execute, clear, and settle the trade all at once. For streaming stuff, we figured that since we were streaming cash for streaming bits, like movies, or content of some kind, you'd just do tit for tat, one stream (cash, probably signed probabalistically tested "coins" in the last iteration that we called "Nicko-mint" :-)) against another, the movie, song, etc being streamed. There's the "missing last 5 minutes" problem, but I think that, in recursive auction-settled cash market for digital goods like this (Eric Hughes' institutional 'pirate' scheme, the 'silk road' stuff, whatever), that there will always be another source to buy what's left from, once the intellectual property issues solve themselves because of the auction process. For things that aren't useful except in their entirety, like code, or executables, (or storing money :-)), I've always been a fan of the Mojo/BitTorrent stuff, where you hash the file into bits, ala m-of-n Shamir secret splitting, and store/buy them from lots of places at once. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQYvH6cPxH8jf3ohaEQIGGACgiS/Uv3KxDK4rM9lozOoxfI5Fg1QAoP7d 4Xw6/SwfaBOqgyh9uQTS/5oa =XMiK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Fri Nov 5 10:38:31 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 13:38:31 -0500 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue Message-ID: I dunno...a lot of it made sense to me. You don't have to be a Commie in order to believe that someone ELSE believes there's a "class war", and that they gotta keep us black folks po', or else we'll soon be having sex with their wives and daughters and competing with their sons for decent jobs. And as long as that somebody else believes there's a class war, they're probably going to vote like there's one, and try to dupe as many others as they can into voting like there's one, and that they're in the in-crowd. And then of course they'll open a military base everynow and then to demonstrate their largesse. -TD >From: "R.A. Hettinga" >To: John Young , cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue >Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:15:48 -0500 > >At 1:05 PM -0800 11/5/04, John Young wrote: > >Bob, you know this is against list rules, everybody knows > >what's right, stop blue-baiting, you fucking nazi. > >:-) > >Cheers, >RAH > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Fri Nov 5 10:43:35 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 13:43:35 -0500 Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: >What if I block the outbound "release the money" message after I >unbundle the images. Sure, I've already committed my money, but you >can't get to it. In effect I've just ripped you off, because I have >usable product and you don't have usable money. Well, yes, but this would be a very significant step forward from the current situation. As t-->infinity the vast majority of non-payments are going to be for the purpose of greed. If the payment is already 'gone', then you need a whole different set of motives for wanting to screw somebody even if you get nothing out of it. So in other words, you have at least solved the payment problem "to the first order", with no 3rd party. With fancier mechanisms I would think you can solve it to 2nd order too. -TD _________________________________________________________________ Check out Election 2004 for up-to-date election news, plus voter tools and more! http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx From jya at pipeline.com Fri Nov 5 14:12:18 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 14:12:18 -0800 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Tyler, Commie is the term used here like is nazi used elsewhere as the most fearsome if thoughtless epithet. Nazi here is a term of endearment, and also admirable role model by some. Calling someone both is not allowed, check the FAQ under impurity. Tim May, praise Allah, always claimed cypherpunks was a fair and balanced forum thanks to the one person of the left here who was fingered affectionately like a house rodent, an easy target for errant shooters. CJ is not to be recalled, ever. Jim Bell still sends "very important" legal papers, the latest yesterday, which describe the way things should be understood. But who can believe an MIT chemist political prisoner. CJ and Jim jailed by the Democratic freedom-fighters. From macavity at well.com Fri Nov 5 06:32:08 2004 From: macavity at well.com (Will Morton) Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 14:32:08 +0000 Subject: Cryptography Research Takes Aim at Content Pirates In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418B8EE8.3010702@well.com> R.A. Hettinga wrote: > > >Yahoo! Finance > > >Source: Cryptography Research, Inc. > >Cryptography Research VP Benjamin Jun Takes Aim at Content Pirates >Friday November 5, 6:02 am ET > >Discusses Technology Trends and Responses at Upcoming RSA Conference Europe >2004 > > > Yes, we can protect you from those eeeeeeeeeeeevil commie pirates. Our product is a "flexible solution that combines programmable security and 'smart content' with risk management techniques such as forensic marking and attack response capabilities." And yes, the icon comes in cornflower blue. Meanwhile, Bittorrent now takes up 35% of global bandwidth (http://in.tech.yahoo.com/041103/137/2ho4i.html) and 4Mb DSL lines are now available in the UK mass market (http://www.bulldogbroadband.com/general/landing.asp) for #40 ($73) per month with T&Cs that scream 'P2P-OK'. Good luck with those 'attack response capabilities'. W From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 11:39:37 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:39:37 -0500 Subject: Election with Hunter Message-ID: Last blue-baiting post, I swear. Gotta love HST, especially after the ether kicks in... Cheers, RAH ------- Aspen Daily News Friday, November 5, 2004 11/4/04 Election with Hunter By Troy Hooper/Aspen Daily News Staff Writer WOODY CREEK - It was Bailey's Irish Cream and Royal Salute Scotch Whiskey at the Thompson household on Election Night. A bottle of Cristal intended for a John Kerry victory remained uncorked, chilling on ice in a backroom. A hungry smell of anticipation hung in the kitchen at Owl Farm, which morphed into a makeshift Democratic headquarters as Hunter S. Thompson hunkered down with a small group of friends and manned what seemed like a global switchboard as calls came pouring in from some of the biggest names in modern American lore. Even a few pollsters dialed up The Good Doctor in search of the most up-to-minute score. Whether they were calling to ascertain Thompson's classified political knowledge or gauge his gambler's instinct was unclear. But without question, his phone was chiming more often than the Liberty Bell. "I don't mean to pop the bad news on you Bubba but John Kerry is getting beat just like George McGovern did in 1972 - or worse," Thompson proclaimed to his nephew well before the news networks gave any hint that Bush Nation was marching toward a second term. "The tide turned so quickly it was difficult to breathe." Actor Sean Penn, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, Kerry press secretary David Wade and others checked in with Thompson who sat on a chair inhaling cigarettes and stiff drinks in between bites of breakfast, which wasn't served to the late-awakening writer until after the sun went down. Asked for a candid assessment of the election, Thompson put it plainly to Penn. "I've got the worst possible news. Colorado has gone to hell like all the other states," Thompson said into the speakerphone. "They must have all voted the same way they prayed." The way Thompson's neighbors voted was far removed from the national outcome. Bush mustered just 2,750 of Pitkin County's electorate while Kerry received 6,275. Nationally, Bush garnered the highest total number of votes ever, winning 51 percent of the record voter turnout, which preliminary estimates have put at roughly 117 million. He is the first president to win a majority of the vote since 1988 when his father beat another Democrat from Massachusetts: Michael Dukakis. "The news is getting logarithmically more horrible," Thompson told another caller as the night wore on. "They're all committing suicide up in Boston." Thompson has always had a keen eye for politics. His best-known work on the subject is "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" - an up-close study of South Dakota Senator George McGovern's effort to unseat President Richard Nixon. Over the weekend, McGovern and Thompson discussed the election: The two old friends suggested Bush might be more dangerous than Nixon. Kerry would make a fine president, they both agreed, as they noted the similarities between the two eras. This year's Democratic presidential candidate must have seen some similarities between now and then, too. When Kerry visited Aspen last June for a fund-raiser, he brought three hardcover copies of "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" to have them autographed. Thompson obliged and struck a friendship with Kerry, serving as his unofficial Aspen tour guide, meeting the candidate on a rain-soaked tarmac at Sardy Field and riding in a Secret Service procession up Red Mountain, showing Kerry the sights and conferring with him on national affairs. Now, five months later, Kerry has met the same fate as McGovern. "I feel like somebody's died," Thompson lamented as the sun was preparing to rise early Wednesday morning. "I'm just not sure who it was." He deemed the election "another failure of the youth vote." "Yeah, we rocked the vote all right. Those little bastards betrayed us again." But despite his disappointment, Thompson remained remarkably upbeat. "Their army is how much bigger than mine? Three percent? Well shucks, Bubba. Now is the time to establish a network and an attitude," he said. "You make friends in moments of defeat. People in defeat tend to bond because they need each other. We can't take the attitude that it's over and we give up. We're still here." Thompson added: "I'm proud to have known John Kerry." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 5 11:56:46 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:56:46 -0500 Subject: Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes Message-ID: Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes Email this Story Nov 5, 11:56 AM (ET) COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said. Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch. State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome. Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result. The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error. The Ohio glitch is among a handful of computer troubles that have emerged since Tuesday's elections. In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor. In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded onto a cartridge. On one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred in the recording process, Damschroder said. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred. (AP) Voters waited up to three hours to cast ballots after one of two voting machines failed to work at... Full Image Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said. The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine. Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed for the city's new "ranked-choice voting," in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters' second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren't eliminated in the first round. When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run on Wednesday of the program that does the redistribution, some of the votes didn't get counted and skewed the results, director John Arntz said. "All the information is there," Arntz said. "It's just not arriving the way it was supposed to." A technician from the Omaha, Neb. company that designed the software, Election Systems & Software Inc., was working to diagnose and fix the problem. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From em at em.no-ip.com Fri Nov 5 00:10:56 2004 From: em at em.no-ip.com (Enzo Michelangeli) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:10:56 +0800 Subject: Your source code, for sale References: <20041104230115.6A1CD57E2A@finney.org> Message-ID: <01b801c4c30f$0c4cc4e0$0200a8c0@em.noip.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: ""Hal Finney"" Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 7:01 AM > "Tyler Durden" writes: > > So my newbie-style question is, is there an eGold that can be > > verified, but not accessed, until a 'release' code is sent? > > > > In other words, say I'm buying some hacker-ed code and pay in egold. > > I don't want them to be able to 'cash' the gold until I have the > > code. Meanwhile, they will want to see that the gold is at least > > "there", even if they can't cash it yet. > > > > Is there a way to send a 'release' to an eGold (or other) payment? > > Better yet, a double simultaneous release feature makes thing even > > more interesting. In the world of international trade, where mutual distrust between buyer and seller is often the rule and there is no central authority to enforce the law, this is traditionally achieved by interposing not less than three trusted third parties: the shipping line, the opening bank and the negotiating bank. First, the buyer asks his bank to open an irrevocable letter of credit (L/C), which is a letter sent to the seller's bank instructing it to pay the seller once the latter presents a given set of documents: these usually include the "bill of lading" (B/L), issued by the shipping line to declare that the desired cargo was indeed loaded on board. The seller gets the letter of gredit from his bank and is now sure that he will be paid by the latter (which he trusts); so he purchases or manufactures the goods, delivers them to the shipping line getting the B/L, passes it together with the other documents to his bank, and draws the payment. The seller's bank sends by mail the documents to the buyer's bank (which it trusts due to long-standing business relationships), knowing that it will eventually receive the settlement money. The buyer's bank receives the documents, debits the buyer's account, remits the monies to the seller's bank, and delivers the documents to the buyer. When the ship arrives to the buye's seaport, the buyer goes to the shipping line, presents to it the B/L and in exchange gets the cargo (in sea shipments, the B/L represents title to the goods). > I've been thinking about how to do this kind of thing with ecash. That's way trickier because there are no trusted third parties, not even e-gold Ltd. / G&SR, Inc. The trust chain with the L/C works well because delegation of trust is unnecessary: every link in the chain bears responsibility only to its adjacent links. [...] > In the case of your problem there is the issue of whether the source > code you are buying is legitimate. Only once you have inspected it and > satisfied yourself that it will suit your needs would you be willing > to pay. But attaining that assurance will require examing the code in > such detail that maybe you will decide that you don't need to pay. Interestingly, with L/C's this problem is addressed by involving yet another third party: an internationally-recognized inspection company (e.g., the Swiss SGS) that issues a document certifying that the cargo is indeed what the buyer expects and not, i.e., bricks. Banks and shipping lines don't want to get involved in these issues; the seller's bank will only check all the documents requested by the L/C (possibly including the inspection certificate). > You could imagine a trusted third party who would inspect the code and > certify it, saying "the source code with hash XXX appears to be > legitimate Cisco source code". Then they could send you the code bit > by bit and incrementally show that it matches the specified hash, > using a crypto protocol for gradual release of secrets. You could > simultaneously do a gradual release of some payment information in the > other direction. But it's hard to assess the value of partially-released code. If the gradual transfer bits-against-cents is aborted, what is left to the buyer is likely to be unusable, whereas the partial payment still represents good value. A more general issue is that source code is not a commodity, and intellectual property is not "real" property: so the traditional "cash on delivery" paradigm just doesn't work, and looking for protocols implementing it kind of moot. If the code is treated as trade secret, rather than licensed, an anonymous buyer may make copies and resell them on the black market more than recovering his initial cost, at the same time undercutting your legitimate sales (see e.g. the cases of RC4 and RC2). This can cause losses order of magnitude larger than refusing to pay for his copy. Enzo From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 04:23:27 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 07:23:27 -0500 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth Message-ID: The New York Times November 6, 2004 OP-ED COLUMNIST The Values-Vote Myth By DAVID BROOKS Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them. In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top. This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong. Here are the facts. As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily. It's true that Bush did get a few more evangelicals to vote Republican, but Kohut, whose final poll nailed the election result dead-on, reminds us that public opinion on gay issues over all has been moving leftward over the years. Majorities oppose gay marriage, but in the exit polls Tuesday, 25 percent of the voters supported gay marriage and 35 percent of voters supported civil unions. There is a big middle on gay rights issues, as there is on most social issues. Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result. The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums. He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror. The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism. The upsurge in voters was an upsurge of people with conservative policy views, whether they are religious or not. The red and blue maps that have been popping up in the papers again this week are certainly striking, but they conceal as much as they reveal. I've spent the past four years traveling to 36 states and writing millions of words trying to understand this values divide, and I can tell you there is no one explanation. It's ridiculous to say, as some liberals have this week, that we are perpetually refighting the Scopes trial, with the metro forces of enlightenment and reason arrayed against the retro forces of dogma and reaction. In the first place, there is an immense diversity of opinion within regions, towns and families. Second, the values divide is a complex layering of conflicting views about faith, leadership, individualism, American exceptionalism, suburbia, Wal-Mart, decorum, economic opportunity, natural law, manliness, bourgeois virtues and a zillion other issues. But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are? What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From pique at netspace.net.au Fri Nov 5 13:02:50 2004 From: pique at netspace.net.au (Tim Benham) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 08:02:50 +1100 Subject: Singin' this'll be the day that it died Message-ID: <200411060802.50796.pique@netspace.net.au> A long, long time agob& I can still remember How the dollar used to make me smile. And I knew if I had my chance I'd sell the currency of France And, maybe, I'd be happy for awhile. But all our spending made me shiver With every T-bill we'd deliver. Bad news on the doorstep; I couldn't take one more step. I can't remember if I cried When I heard our politicians lied But something touched me deep inside The day the dollar died. So bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. Did you write Whitehouse.gov Or have you a Yen to fall in love If Japan will tell you so? Now, do you believe in oil 'n coal Can China fill our import hole And can we teach them how to grow real slow? Well I know the country's fit and trim 'Cause the jobs are in the Pacific Rim. We all knew savers lose Man, I dug not having to choose. We were living off the almighty buck We got their goods and they were stuck But I knew we were out of luck The day the dollar died. I started singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. Now for ten years we were sure we owned All the stocks and bonds and mortgage loans But that's not how it's gonna be. When we've spent it all like kings and queens In clothes we bought from The Philippines The Asians pick the reserve currency. Oh, and while the king was looking down, Their central bankers came to town. Our stocks and bonds were spurned Those dollars were returned. And while unions filled their books with Marx The President said drill in parks Our thermostats froze in the dark The day the dollar died. We were singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. . Helter skelter in a summer swelter The equity's gone from your leveraged shelter Fannie and Freddie are falling fast. Crash, they landed, but in a new class Full faith and credit have long since passed With Congress, in denial, out of gas. Now the Wal-Mart there has cheap perfume With imports filling every room. We all got up to dance Oh, but we never got the chance. The consumers tried to take the field The central banks refused to yield Do you recall what was revealed The day the dollar died? We started singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. Oh, and there we were all in one place Our credit rating in disgrace With no time left to start again. So come on: Al be nimble, Al be quick! Al, cut rates by 50 ticks 'cause credit is the debtor's only friend. Oh, and as I watched him on the stage My hands were clenched in fists of rage No congressman in hell Could buy what he would sell. And as the rates climbed high into the night To stem the U.S. asset flight The IMF said, "Yes, that's right" The day the dollar died They were singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. I met a girl who sang the blues And I asked her if we still could choose But she just smiled and turned away. I went down to the Medicare store Where we'd spent our dollars years before But the man there said those dollars wouldn't pay. And in the streets the children screamed The seniors cried and the workers steamed But not a word was spoken The commitments all were broken. And the three men I admire most: Faber, Rogers, and Bill Gross Were at the forex trading post The day the dollar died. And they were singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. They were singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died. -- Harry Chernoff is an independent economist in Great Falls, VA (with apologies to Don McLean) From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 05:23:12 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 08:23:12 -0500 Subject: Broward machines count backward Message-ID: Palm Beach Post Broward machines count backward By Eliot Kleinberg Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Friday, November 05, 2004 FORT LAUDERDALE - It had to happen. Things were just going too smoothly. Early Thursday, as Broward County elections officials wrapped up after a long day of canvassing votes, something unusual caught their eye. Tallies should go up as more votes are counted. That's simple math. But in some races, the numbers had gone . . . down. Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward. Why a voting system would be designed to count backward was a mystery to Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman. She was on the phone late Wednesday with Omaha-based Elections Systems and Software. Bad numbers showed up only in running tallies through the day, not the final one. Final tallies were reached by cross-checking machine totals, and officials are confident they are accurate. The glitch affected only the 97,434 absentee ballots, Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes said. All were placed in their own precincts and optical scanners totaled votes, which were then fed to a main computer. That's where the counting problems surfaced. They affected only votes for constitutional amendments 4 through 8, because they were on the only page that was exactly the same on all county absentee ballots. The same software is used in Martin and Miami-Dade counties; Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties use different companies. The problem cropped up in the 2002 election. Lieberman said ES&S told her it had sent software upgrades to the Florida Secretary of State's office, but that the office kept rejecting the software. The state said that's not true. Broward elections officials said they had thought the problem was fixed. Secretary of State spokeswoman Jenny Nash said all counties using this system had been told that such problems would occur if a precinct is set up in a way that would allow votes to get above 32,000. She said Broward should have split the absentee ballots into four separate precincts to avoid that and that a Broward elections employee since has admitted to not doing that. But Lieberman said later, "No election employee has come to the canvassing board and made the statements that Jenny Nash said occurred." Late Thursday, ES&S issued a statement reiterating that it learned of the problems in 2002 and said the software upgrades would be submitted to Hood's office next year. The company was working with the counties it serves to make sure ballots don't exceed capacity and said no other counties reported similar problems. "While the county bears the ultimate responsibility for programming the ballot and structuring the precincts, we . . . regret any confusion the discrepancy in early vote totals has caused," the statement said. After several calls to the company during the day were not returned, an ES&S spokeswoman said late Thursday she did not know whether ES&S contacted the secretary of state two years ago or whether the software is designed to count backward. While the problem surfaced two years ago, it was under a different Br oward elections supervisor and a different secretary of state. Snipes said she had not known about the 2002 snafu. Later, Lieberman said, "I am not passing judgments and I'm not pointing a finger." But she said that if ES&S is found to be at fault, actions might include penalizing ES&S or even defaulting on its contract. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Sat Nov 6 05:46:17 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 08:46:17 -0500 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth Message-ID: "He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror." In other words, he won because some hillbilly was afraid that the guy at the local 7-11 was going to blow up his chicked farm. Those of us living close enough to "Ground Zero" to smell it back in those days are apprarently less than convinced. So: A 'moral values' question for Cypherpunks. Does this election indict the American people as being complicit in the crime known as "Operation Freedom"? (I notice everyone forgot about that name.) -TD _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From jya at pipeline.com Sat Nov 6 08:59:08 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 08:59:08 -0800 Subject: Why Americans Hate Dissenters In-Reply-To: <68af3a36547b5a13efcf330e080e2ef8@dizum.com> Message-ID: On CJ (Carl Johnson) and Jim Bell: There was a time when the greatest terrorist threat to the US was located in the northwestern part of the country, Idaho, Washington State and Oregon, some of California. Militia the infidels were called. The US Attorney's Office in Tacoma, WA, was a center of counterterrorist activity, aided by FBI, Treasury, IRS, US Marshals, DEA and others. Jim Bell was twice busted, tried, convicted and jailed, by the Tacoma USA, for alleged acts against the USG, primarily the IRS, but knowledgeable citizens presume the assault was the result of his essay, Assassination Politics (AP), which descibed a system for anonymous killing of varmints, government officials especially, but not limited to those. CJ defended Jim with a series of online statements on his behalf, and for allegedly running an online version of AP. For this misbehavior he was busted, tried, convicted and jailed, also by the Tacoma USA. Jim served his first term, allegedly misbehaved again, and was sent to jail again, where he remains and continues to file appeals of his railroading. CJ served a term and is now free, pursuing among other wonders his career as the King of Country Porn. Bell and CJ posted regularly to cypherpunks during their days of pre-jailing, and some of their messages here were used against them during trial. An agent of the IRS, Jeff Gordon was a known subscriber of cypherpunks for the purpose of surveilling members and stashing useful email evidence to advance his career -- Jeff was indeed awarded honors for his investigation and jailing of the heroes of the revolution. Here's a US Marshal report on Jeff's snooping: ----- http://cryptome.org/jdb/usms020499.htm On November 25, 1997, Inspector Jeff GORDAN with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Portland, Oregon, contacted the U.S. Marshals Service, Tacoma, Washington, regarding an internet posting he had obtained on this day (see attached). [http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.97.11.20-97.11.26/msg00274.html] On the same date, Deputy U.S. Marshal STEPHENSON contacted Inspector GORDAN in an attempt obtain further details regarding the individuals mentioned in the internet posting. Inspector GORDAN related the following: On May 17, 1997, the IRS in Vancouver, Washington, arrested James Dalton BELL (#26906-086) for threats, assaults, obstruction, and intimidation of employees and officers of the IRS. During IRS's initial investigation of BELL, the IRS discovered that BELL was associated with the Multnomah County Common Law Court as well as the author of "Assassination Politics", an essay that describes and advocates the development and use of a system to reward people who kill selected Government employees. BELL was also known to transmit his beliefs via internet services (see W/WA case #CR97-5270FDB). Inspector GORDON indicated that since BELL's arrest his office has been monitoring internet postings by the Cypherpunks, one of the groups BELL was known to be communicating with. Many of the postings are simply communications between members of the group regarding their dissatisfaction with the Government. Inspector GORDAN related that this posting was a concern due to the statement made by the author, indicating that Tim MAY announced he would be murdering Jim Bell's judge (known to be U.S. District Judge Franklin BURGESS or Magistrate J. Kelly ARNOLD) on Friday, at 4;00 p.m. Inspector GORDAN indicated that he is not familiar with the author of the posting, Bad BobbyH, however he was familiar with Tim MAY. Inspector GORDAN described MAY as being an anarchist/survivalist who seems to spend much of his time communicating his beliefs via the internet. According to Inspector GORDAN, MAY is retired and fairly "well off", making his fortune years ago by developing computer programs. May also has a tendency to attempt to "goat" or "bait" law enforcement officers into taking action and has repeatedly stated he would shoot any law enforcement officers who attempted to arrest him. Inspector GORDAN provided the following information regarding the individuals mentioned in the posting: Timothy C. MAY (DoB: 12/21/51 & SSN: XXX-XX-XXX) XXX Corralltos, CA 95078 Robert HETTINGA XXX Boston, MA 02131 Inspector GORDAN disclosed that his office is unable to trace the posting because the address, Robert Heidegger (rh at dev.null), is false/untraceable. On November 25, 1997, U.S. District Judge Franklin BURGESS and Magistrate Judge J. Kelly ARNOLD were notified by Supervisory Deputy Glenn WHALEY and Deputy STEPHENSON reference the internet posting. A copy of the internet posting was forwarded to FBI Special Agent Ron Stankye (360) 695-5661. Attached is a copy of another posting by the Cypherpunks previously received on June 23, 1997 regarding Magistrate J. Kelly ARNOLD. If you have any questions regarding this matter, please call Deputy STEPHENSON at (253) 593-6344. ----- Several cypherpunks were subpoenaed for the three trials for eithering hosting the list, being named as correspondents with Bell and/or CJ, reporting about the two, or allegedly having information about their seditious activity -- then known as tormenting officials eager to boost counterterrorism funding long before the field went ballistic with Homeland Security golden windfall, praise Allah's generosity. Here are some files on the trials of the two: http://cryptome.org/jdb/jdbfiles.htm (Jim Bell) http://cryptome.org/jdb/cejfiles.htm (CJ) http://danenright.com/mirror/cj/ (CJ) Ever In struggle, Your Commie/Nazi Reporter From jamesd at echeque.com Sat Nov 6 09:31:24 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James Donald) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:31:24 -0800 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue Message-ID: <200411060931.AA659620004@echeque.com> -- John Young wrote: > Commie is the term used here like is nazi used elsewhere as the most > fearsome if thoughtless epithet. Nazi here is a term of endearment, > and also admirable role model by some. > > Calling someone both is not allowed, check the FAQ under impurity. I routinely call people like you nazi-commies. As George Orwell observed, anyone who thinks there is a significant difference between nazis and commies is in favor of one or the other. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG tcPPLhn9aMTaLb/hq3C0TK4TWGyDiUmRgFC+48C2 4sa/dBFoKxqt/B8oRTgvooxp3PmvXeSL3LjqpFI+W ___________________________________________________________ $0 Web Hosting with up to 120MB web space, 1000 MB Transfer 10 Personalized POP and Web E-mail Accounts, and much more. Signup at www.doteasy.com From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 06:46:29 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:46:29 -0500 Subject: 'Perilous Times': War of Words Message-ID: The New York Times November 7, 2004 'Perilous Times': War of Words By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS PERILOUS TIMES Free Speech in Wartime, From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism. By Geoffrey R. Stone. llustrated. 730 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $35. OWEVER seductively it may be phrased, the offer of an exchange of liberty for security has a totalitarian hook sticking out of its protectively colored bait. Societies that make the trade have very often ended up with neither liberty nor security. But on the other hand (as Fay Wray entitled her own memoir of monstrousness in New York) totalitarianism can present a much more menacing threat from without. I have heard serious people describe the reign of our pious present attorney general as fascistic. Given that jihadist armed forces could still be in our midst, that might be looking for fascism in all the wrong places. What this argument has long needed is the discipline of historical perspective, and Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor of law and former dean at the University of Chicago, has come forward at precisely the right moment with an imposing book that offers precisely that. In ''Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime, From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism,'' he shows how the United States has balanced (and unbalanced) the scale of freedom versus the exigencies of self-defense. And he also demonstrates a kind of evolutionary learning curve, whereby the courts have distilled some of our dearly bought experience. America's first experiment with a national-security state was at once its most unambivalently disastrous and its shortest lived. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were, to begin with, flagrantly partisan. The easiest proof of this is the exemption of the vice president from the list of official persons who could be calumniated, simply because the anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson was at that time the holder of the office. They also vastly exaggerated the threat from revolutionary France and flatly negated the spirit and letter of the First Amendment. Editors were imprisoned; foreign-born friends of America like Thaddeus Kosciusko had already felt compelled to leave the country. So great was the eventual revulsion from this that, six and a half decades after the acts were repealed, President Lincoln had no choice but to read the most viperous editorials in the Democratic press, describing him as a demented tyrant bent upon a bloody war of self-aggrandizement. Stone's pages on this period are completely absorbing. He shows that Lincoln did imprison or fine the occasional editor, but with scant relish for the business, and that wartime censorship was so easily evaded as to be no censorship at all. The crisis came, rather, over conscription and the concomitant suspension of habeas corpus. Lincoln's secretary of state, William Seward, was widely quoted as having told the British minister: ''I can touch a bell on my right hand and order the arrest of a citizen in Ohio. I can touch the bell again and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York, and no power on earth but that of the president can release them. Can the queen of England, in her dominions, say as much?'' This boastful inversion of the original purposes of the American Revolution may have been overstated for effect, but not by much. Lincoln did order nighttime arrests, and did ignore Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's ruling that a president had no power to deny habeas corpus. Taney's position is that the Constitution reserves such extreme measures only for the Congress. If a president wants to assume such powers, he cannot do so without at least resorting to the courts, which Lincoln steadily declined to do. Instead, he rather demagogically demanded to know why the law should force him to shoot ''a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert.'' The cause celebre here became that of Clement Vallandigham, a leader of the Copperheads, northern Democrats sympathetic to the South, who spiritedly opposed both conscription and emancipation. He was arrested, then exiled from the Union. I have never seen it argued that this measure had any influence on the desertion rate (improbable in any case, given that the thought of the firing squad probably had a greater effect on the mind of the simple-minded soldier boy). The best that can be said is that Lincoln seems to have sensed the absurdity of his own logic, and regularly urged local commanders not to embarrass him by locking up people who merely uttered anti-Union sentiments. The next two wartime crises involved the killing of foreigners rather than Americans, and in both cases the ''loyalty'' of ethnic or national minorities was in question. During World War I, the persecution of German-Americans put H. L. Mencken in a permanent state of alienated rage, while Woodrow Wilson outdid Lincoln in vindictiveness by refusing to release Eugene V. Debs, America's finest socialist, until well after the war was over. Debs had been imprisoned for urging Americans to take no part in an imperialist war; but against recent immigrants, mainly Jews, the weapon of deportation was also employed. It's from this period that we have Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's notorious observation about shouting ''fire'' in a crowded theater as a symbolic limitation on free expression. (The antiwar forces might have retorted that the theater actually was on fire.) Holmes, however, became disgusted by some of the excesses of authority, and made some important rulings the other way. In the run-up to World War II, Franklin Roosevelt swung out against the antiwar isolationists with Lincoln's vigor, denouncing Charles Lindbergh as a second Vallandigham. The trial of William Dudley Pelley, leader of the fascist Silver Shirt militia, provided the war years' test case. Pelley had taken the Nazi side, proclaimed an administration conspiracy to exploit Pearl Harbor and announced that Americans were being drafted to fight a Jewish war. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and served 10, which meant that he also stayed inside until after the war was over. (Stone does not notice the irony that he served his time in the penitentiary at Terre Haute, Ind., birthplace of Debs and today the site of his museum.) In a fascinating discussion of the case, Stone shows that Pelley was right in one respect about Pearl Harbor: the Roosevelt administration really did cover up the extent of the damage inflicted by the Japanese. Official statements described burned and sunken battleships as still afloat. Stone also provides a meticulous discussion of the internment of the Japanese-American population, even though this was not exactly a ''free speech'' question. If this argument ran in a straight line, one would expect the United States, after one civil war and two global conflicts, to have many fewer liberties than it had in the 1850's. But the effect is as much dialectical as it is cumulative, if not more so. As Stone demonstrates, the courts have made concessions based on precedent. In the Pelley case, a court of appeals reconsidered the Espionage Act of 1917, under which Pelley had been charged, to refine and dilute the definition of subversive speech. There was a line to be observed, demarcating the propagation of deliberate falsehood from the circulation of disputable opinions. By the time the United States was next divided in wartime, during the Vietnam years, the courts were ready to rule that speech and action should in effect be considered separately. In one case, it was ordered that Julian Bond, the charismatic young civil-rights campaigner, could be seated in the Georgia legislature despite his opposition to the draft. In another, it was decided that an Ohio Klansman named Clarence Brandenburg should be allowed to go on yelling his head off. So the cases of Bond and Brandenburg are now cited as joint precedents and, as Stone points out, there have been no federal prosecutions for speech or ''incitement'' since Sept. 11, 2001. It might be too soon, not to say too complacent, to make a case for American exceptionalism in this regard. And Stone does not take up the peacetime panic after the 1995 bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City that produced the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which is still employed for prosecutions and deportations. There was enough law already on the books, you might say, before the passage of the Patriot Act. And surely one central part of that act -- the correct decision to allow the sharing of intelligence between foreign and domestic agencies -- could have been made for its own sake. One closes this admirable book more than ever determined that the authors of the Constitution were right the first time, and that the only amendment necessary might be a prohibition on the passage of any law within six months of any atrocity, foreign or domestic. CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS is a columnist for Vanity Fair and a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School University. His new collection of essays, ''Love, Poverty and War,'' is forthcoming this winter. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 06:57:22 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:57:22 -0500 Subject: No, Canada! Message-ID: The Boston Globe THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING No, Canada! You don't want to go there By Alex Beam, Globe Staff | November 6, 2004 You have probably heard the idle chatter: ''I'm thinking of moving to Canada." You may have received the JPEG Sent 'Round the World, labeling the northern part of North America -- the right-thinking part, as liberals would have it -- as the United States of Canada, and the pro-Bush leaning ''red" US states as Jesusland. It sounds so alluring. Good beer. Cheap Viagra. Hardly any crime. Friendly, if somewhat ineffectual, people. Terrific, if underappreciated, novelists. (This means you, Rohinton Mistry.) Secure borders, courtesy of the US Department of Defense. But before you pack, consider this: There are plenty of reasons not to move to Canada. Let me count the ways. 1. They don't really want you. Canada is full of losers like you. If you're really rich, or a brain surgeon, maybe. But if you are, say, a newspaper reporter, be prepared to wait at least a year just to live there legally, and several more years to become a citizen. If you have some special qualifications, like a PhD, plus a lot of work experience, and if you are under 50, you have a better chance of crashing the gates of Snow Mexico. Or if you're loaded. That's right. If you have a net worth of $800,000 Canadian or more, and are willing to invest $400,000 of it in Canada, come on in! And you thought George Bush's America was a plutocracy. . . . Think again. 2. Speaking of brain surgery -- have you tried Buffalo? Here is what John Kerry didn't tell you: The problem with free, single-payer health care is that you get what you pay for. Even the Canadians acknowledge that their health system is in crisis. (Sound familiar?) They speak about the inequities of their two-tiered system, where publicly funded patients wait weeks, if not months, to consult specialists or have routine surgery, while private patients get quick service. In fact, it's a three-tiered system. The very well-to-do travel to the United States for some procedures. We refer you to a recent editorial in The Windsor (Ontario) Star: ''A growing number of sick and tired Canadians are beginning to look to the US for ideas on how to improve our failing health-care system. But Kerry, inexplicably, is looking north for health care ideas." 3. Parlez-vous francais? Somehow I doubt it. And yet if you want to work for the Canadian government -- the country's largest employer -- chances are that you have to be bilingual. And the private sector is following suit. C'est dur, eh? 4. How do you like your free speech -- well chilled? Canada has no First Amendment and adheres to primitive British-style libel laws. Here is a hilarious definition of defamation la Canadienne, from the Media Libel website: ''A defamatory statement exists if the publication tends to lower the plaintiff's reputation in the estimation of those who are commonly referred to as 'right thinking' members of society." Allow me to reiterate my widely known position: Celine Dion is the greatest singer who ever lived. Just this year, the Canadian Parliament passed what the religious right has branded a ''Chill Bill," or ''The Bible as Hate Speech Bill," effectively preventing churches from using the Bible to preach against homosexuality. ''With the passage of Bill C-250, Canada has now embarked upon a course of criminalization of dissent," according to a statement released this spring by the Catholic Civil Rights League. Fine, you say. Enough gay-bashing by Bible-waving Christian loonies. But remember John Ashcroft's motto: Your rights are next. 5. It's the black hole of sports fandom. You would seriously consider leaving the home of North America's greatest baseball team -- ever -- and of North America's greatest football team, for . . . what? Canadian football is played on a field that's too long (that's why each team has 12 players), and there are only three downs. Huh? Fifty percent of Canada's Major League Baseball infrastructure -- les Montral Expos just decamped for Washington, D.C., because of audience indifference. Canada's one great sports treasure, professional hockey, isn't being played this year. You hadn't noticed? And you can't even name its national sport, can you? What if that question is on the citizenship application? 6. Have you heard the joke about the Canadian dollar? Not lately. Without putting too fine a point on this, Canadian currency has been laying a Euro-style smackdown on the US greenback. What this means to you: less purchasing power. Wait, there's more. You think you're living in a high-tax state right now? Hahahahahaha. 7. The biggest argument against immigrating to Canada is: You're going in the wrong direction! With all due respect to our northern neighbors, anyone who is anyone bolted years ago. Peter Jennings, Mike Myers, Joni Mitchell, Jim Carrey, Frank Gehry (would they take him back?) -- the list goes on and on. Have talent, will travel -- southward. You might want to ask yourself why. So please, think twice. They don't want you, and we would prefer that you stay. If the new administration is a problem, just don't turn on your television for the next four years. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 08:26:21 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 11:26:21 -0500 Subject: Kerry Kept Money Coming With the Internet as His ATM Message-ID: The New York Times November 6, 2004 FUND-RAISING Kerry Kept Money Coming With the Internet as His ATM By GLEN JUSTICE WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - The power of the Internet in this year's election can be summed up in the story of Sam Warren, an Alabama voter who had never made a political contribution before but found himself donating 21 times to Senator John Kerry - all without opening his checkbook. Mr. Warren gave when the senator won the Super Tuesday primaries. He gave when the campaign sent him an e-mail message. He gave during the Democratic convention. By Election Day, Mr. Warren had given almost $2,000. "I surprised even myself," he said. "It's so easy to do. All you do is click-click with a Visa card." The emergence of the Internet as a major fund-raising tool is arguably the largest single change to the campaign finance system to come from this year's presidential race, allowing thousands of contributors like Mr. Warren to react instantly to campaign events as they happen. Although Howard Dean set the pace during the primaries, raising roughly $20 million, no one capitalized more on Internet fund-raising than Mr. Kerry. With a sophisticated marketing effort to keep people clicking, he emerged as the largest online fund-raiser in politics, bringing in about $82 million over the Internet - more than the $50 million Al Gore raised from all individual contributors in 2000. The Bush campaign, which used its Internet site primarily to organize voters, raised about $14 million online. The Internet helped Mr. Kerry cut President Bush's financial lead substantially. Mr. Bush raised about $273 million, while Mr. Kerry raised about $249 million. The amount Mr. Kerry raised online virtually ensures that few presidential and Congressional campaigns will develop in the future without the Internet in mind. "This is arguably the most powerful tool for political engagement we've ever seen," said Simon Rosenthal, president of the New Democratic Network. "It made it easier for the average citizen to participate in politics. Every moment they interact with the campaign can be a direct-response moment. They can watch a speech on TV, get motivated and give money." And they did. Though there is no precise tally of how many people gave to the candidates over the Internet, the amount of cash from people giving less than $200 increased fourfold from 2000, according to the Campaign Finance Institute, which studies presidential financing. Online fund-raising spread quickly, allowing candidates, parties and advocacy groups a low-cost supplement to big-donor fund-raising. The Internet pioneer MoveOn.org, which advocated Mr. Bush's defeat, raised millions. At the popular liberal Web log Daily Kos, its founder, Markos Moulitsas, directed more than $750,000 to the Democratic party and candidates from 6,500 contributors. Just a mention on the blog was worth thousands to a campaign. Even Amazon.com got involved, offering links that raised $300,000 for presidential candidates. "We were happy to make it as easy for people to contribute as it is to buy the latest Harry Potter book," the company said in a letter to customers. It was just four years ago that Senator John McCain made headlines when he raised more than $1 million online after winning the New Hampshire primary. This year, Dr. Dean created his entire campaign around the Internet, relying on it for fund-raising and organization and pioneering many of the techniques that have become standard practice. The campaign posted its fund-raising goals, long a taboo in the political world, and sent a relentless stream of fund-raising e-mail messages, liberally sharing information about why it needed the money and what it would pay for. And it took chances. "The Dean campaign really experimented a lot," said Nicco Mele, the campaign's Webmaster. "The Kerry campaign doesn't have that approach." Mr. Kerry's campaign came late to online fund-raising. He raised just $1.2 million in 2003, with an Internet team in the basement of a Washington townhouse. But the campaign awoke to the possibilities when Dr. Dean's fund-raising began to soar. Josh Ross, a 32-year-old former Republican with a Silicon Valley background, came aboard in late November 2003 to marshal the effort, but it was a period when Mr. Kerry was sagging in the polls and fund-raising had slowed. "Josh was building a car, but he didn't have a whole lot of gas," said David Thorne, Mr. Kerry's longtime friend and former brother-in-law, who was instrumental in creating the campaign's Internet program. The situation turned when Mr. Kerry won in Iowa. The Internet team persuaded campaign leaders to insert a mention of the Web site in the victory speech. Mr. Thorne made a late-night run to Kinko's to create a JohnKerry.com placard for the lectern. When the candidate mentioned the site, hits shot skyward. "There were never any nonbelievers after that," said Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager. When the campaign moved its headquarters, Mr. Ross ultimately found himself overseeing more than 30 people from a corner office on the sixth floor. Mr. Ross talked about running the operation like a business, with a heavy focus on quantifiable results. "We're not here to entertain," he said. The results often shattered records. The campaign raised $2.3 million online the day after Super Tuesday and $2.7 million the day after that. The one-day record of $5.7 million was set when Mr. Kerry accepted the Democratic nomination. Some campaign finance experts say that Mr. Kerry simply inherited the energetic donors whom Dr. Dean created, and that the campaign did not go far enough to engage them. Others say that anti-Bush sentiment drove the large numbers, and that any Democratic nominee was bound to make millions online. "Part of it is that they had the sizzle," said Ellen Malcolm, a veteran Democratic fund-raiser. "That's a very short-term fund-raising thing. We still all have a lot to learn about these sizzle donors." But the Kerry campaign made great strides to engage its online supporters. It publicized a petition calling for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation that drew hundreds of thousands of signatures. When Senator John Edwards joined the ticket, the decision was first announced online. The campaign challenged supporters to raise $10 million in 10 days online, and succeeded. It also spent a lot of time testing which wording in e-mail messages and on the Web site drew the most contributions. With 2.6 million supporters on the campaign's e-mail list and a Web page averaging 250,000 daily visitors during peak times, even small increases in the percentage of people who donated could equal large gains. "You start adding those nickels up and it makes a dramatic, dramatic difference," Mr. Ross said. The campaign learned that fund-raising letters do poorly on Monday. E-mail messages are best sent around 11 a.m., after people have cleared their mailbox of unwanted "spam." And contributions swell at lunchtime on both coasts, when people spend time online. Mr. Ross's team also tested e-mail subject lines. On the day of Mr. Kerry's convention speech in July - which was also the last day the campaign could raise private money before switching to public financing - the campaign sent out a long letter and a shorter letter, some carrying the subject line "this is it" and some saying "last chance." The short version with the "last chance" heading did best and was delivered en masse. The Web page was also engineered to bring in money. One example was the "splash page," the first thing that new visitors see. At one point, Mr. Ross and his colleagues had 30 versions of the page up on a wall. They tested photos until they settled on a picture of Mr. Kerry flashing the thumbs up. They tested headlines until they chose "Make history with us." Even a small contribution button toward the bottom, which was bringing in more than $75,000 a day at its peak, was maximized. The campaign tested four different versions before finding that the label "contribute before deadline" increased the number of donations by 35 percent. "We have no problem testing our own assumptions," Mr. Ross said. "We don't do anything based on a guess." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From pcapelli at gmail.com Sat Nov 6 08:32:45 2004 From: pcapelli at gmail.com (Pete Capelli) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 11:32:45 -0500 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 08:46:17 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: > In other words, he won because some hillbilly was afraid that the guy at the > local 7-11 was going to blow up his chicked farm. Those of us living close > enough to "Ground Zero" to smell it back in those days are apprarently less > than convinced. As the article notes, GWB *improved* his showing in NY over the 2000 election. Are you implying that the US won't be attacked again? I could follow your ad-hominem attack with one about mincing homosexuals, but we both know that singlularity of voters on either side is incorrect, and does nothing to forward the discussion. > So: A 'moral values' question for Cypherpunks. Does this election indict the > American people as being complicit in the crime known as "Operation > Freedom"? (I notice everyone forgot about that name.) Of course it does. That's what a republic is. But who's going to 'indict' us? The UN? Maybe after we finish the trials for their self-dealing on the 'Oil for Food' program (as Orwellian a title as the Patriot Act had). -- Pete Capelli pcapelli at ieee.org http://www.capelli.org PGP Key ID:0x829263B6 "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 From jya at pipeline.com Sat Nov 6 11:42:17 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 11:42:17 -0800 Subject: No, Canada! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Fair enough. Canada is a role model for the US, as is the US for the world: nobody is wanted unless they are willing to pay for the mistakes and messes the locals have made, or best, work for starvation wages, usually off the books, long the prime source of penal-grade labor in the Echelon nations, not to say the, spit, Western and Eastern cultures -- out-sourcing has always been first in line right at home: wives, kids and the invisible caste-classes who swab your puke and dump your garbage and bail you out of the drunk tank. Contamination by settlement of North America (and man-woman marriage): pay for it, new immigrants (wives and kids), with cheap labor and keeping your thoughts very, very quiet, and don't bitch about master's eccentricities about sex. The first New World, as Old, settlers set these conditions for the natives and for anybody who came afterwards. That's how you succeed in the New Worlds, behave like Calvinist cum Libertarian cum Roman cum Roman Church pretend aristocrats: if you dont'have it you don't deserve it, but you can always steal it the legal way, stock market and tithe basket, praise Allah for his valorizing wealth as salvation. But, more of the defense budget goes for clean-up of its messes in the US than for military health-care and benefits (overseas it has hardly begun). The clean-up corporations are mostly the same ones which made the messes (this is the pattern since the Revolutionary War), and they are not doing the job worth a shit, overruns and performance failures as bad as for unworkable but richly bragged-about armaments. If the bitching about contamination gets too loud, why start another war. The DC-area is one of the most contaminated parts of the US due to the plethora of toxic-puking mil installations. One of the worst is under American University and surrounding neighborhoods, across Nebraska Avenue from the headquarters of Homeland Security, itself once home of the military's oldest comsec unit. As sleazy Hitchens and slews of other suck-ups of the rich and powerful have demonstrated, especially those predating from Canada: defend and flatter and amuse the privileged of the US-supremacist model of the New World as if the Old in new clothing, and you'll do quite well. But do not engage in dissent or your product won't move and your wise ass will be banished -- thanks to the scoundrels' patriotism embedded in the capitalist regime since day one. From jya at pipeline.com Sat Nov 6 12:23:11 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 12:23:11 -0800 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The US made a bundle from WW1 and WW2 warfare, in both cases being rescued from an economic slump, and some have argued the US delayed sending troops as long as possible to extend the demand for supplies, supplies which appeared to always be insufficient but enough to keep the warring parties going at it. To be sure, the US Civil War provided the same beneficence to its overseas exploiters, not to say domestic entrpreneurs, not to say hordes of today's reenactors. Historians have noted that Northern generals in particular worked hard to avoid battle while begging for more troops and supplies. Shrewd commentators write there could have been Southern-general complicity in this paradic churning before it got out of hand due to Lincoln demanding action to keep his comfy future -- kapow! went the prez to his virgins. It is a truism that power in leaders is enlarged during wartime, no matter their ideology, so it is a surefire way to boost flagging support (60 million can be that DUMB). And the more humans slaughtered the greater the support as each homeland, praise Allah's cloven hooves, and seeks revenge for the loss of its prime beef, and if all goes well, the fighting never comes home to roost in hilltop mansions, damn those paraplegics who won't parade their grotesqueries: axe their meds. Red poppies, how do they bloom in November, remember Fallujah. Halls of Montezuma, Shores of Tripoli, yadda. From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Sat Nov 6 10:18:49 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 13:18:49 -0500 Subject: No, Canada! Message-ID: Wow. What kind of fucking idiot wrote this thing? A piece like this can actually get published? This is the biggest set of arguments I've seen yet for moving TO Canada! BTW: I always thought that "Economic Immigration" was an excellent idea....it siphoned off tons of Hong Kong millionares before the PRC took over. The US should have been doing it in addition to the non-Express route. -TD >From: "R.A. Hettinga" >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: No, Canada! >Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:57:22 -0500 > > > >The Boston Globe >THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING >No, Canada! > >You don't want to go there > >By Alex Beam, Globe Staff | November 6, 2004 > >You have probably heard the idle chatter: ''I'm thinking of moving to >Canada." You may have received the JPEG Sent 'Round the World, labeling the >northern part of North America -- the right-thinking part, as liberals >would have it -- as the United States of Canada, and the pro-Bush leaning >''red" US states as Jesusland. > >It sounds so alluring. Good beer. Cheap Viagra. Hardly any crime. Friendly, >if somewhat ineffectual, people. Terrific, if underappreciated, novelists. >(This means you, Rohinton Mistry.) Secure borders, courtesy of the US >Department of Defense. > >But before you pack, consider this: There are plenty of reasons not to >move to Canada. Let me count the ways. > >1. They don't really want you. Canada is full of losers like you. If you're >really rich, or a brain surgeon, maybe. But if you are, say, a newspaper >reporter, be prepared to wait at least a year just to live there legally, >and several more years to become a citizen. > >If you have some special qualifications, like a PhD, plus a lot of work >experience, and if you are under 50, you have a better chance of crashing >the gates of Snow Mexico. Or if you're loaded. That's right. If you have a >net worth of $800,000 Canadian or more, and are willing to invest $400,000 >of it in Canada, come on in! And you thought George Bush's America was a >plutocracy. . . . Think again. > >2. Speaking of brain surgery -- have you tried Buffalo? Here is what John >Kerry didn't tell you: The problem with free, single-payer health care is >that you get what you pay for. > >Even the Canadians acknowledge that their health system is in crisis. >(Sound familiar?) They speak about the inequities of their two-tiered >system, where publicly funded patients wait weeks, if not months, to >consult specialists or have routine surgery, while private patients get >quick service. In fact, it's a three-tiered system. The very well-to-do >travel to the United States for some procedures. > >We refer you to a recent editorial in The Windsor (Ontario) Star: ''A >growing number of sick and tired Canadians are beginning to look to the US >for ideas on how to improve our failing health-care system. But Kerry, >inexplicably, is looking north for health care ideas." > >3. Parlez-vous francais? Somehow I doubt it. And yet if you want to work >for the Canadian government -- the country's largest employer -- chances >are that you have to be bilingual. And the private sector is following >suit. C'est dur, eh? > >4. How do you like your free speech -- well chilled? Canada has no First >Amendment and adheres to primitive British-style libel laws. > >Here is a hilarious definition of defamation la Canadienne, from the Media >Libel website: ''A defamatory statement exists if the publication tends to >lower the plaintiff's reputation in the estimation of those who are >commonly referred to as 'right thinking' members of society." Allow me to >reiterate my widely known position: Celine Dion is the greatest singer who >ever lived. > >Just this year, the Canadian Parliament passed what the religious right has >branded a ''Chill Bill," or ''The Bible as Hate Speech Bill," effectively >preventing churches from using the Bible to preach against homosexuality. >''With the passage of Bill C-250, Canada has now embarked upon a course of >criminalization of dissent," according to a statement released this spring >by the Catholic Civil Rights League. > >Fine, you say. Enough gay-bashing by Bible-waving Christian loonies. But >remember John Ashcroft's motto: Your rights are next. > >5. It's the black hole of sports fandom. You would seriously consider >leaving the home of North America's greatest baseball team -- ever -- and >of North America's greatest football team, for . . . what? Canadian >football is played on a field that's too long (that's why each team has 12 >players), and there are only three downs. Huh? > >Fifty percent of Canada's Major League Baseball infrastructure -- les >Montral Expos just decamped for Washington, D.C., because of audience >indifference. Canada's one great sports treasure, professional hockey, >isn't being played this year. You hadn't noticed? > >And you can't even name its national sport, can you? What if that question >is on the citizenship application? > >6. Have you heard the joke about the Canadian dollar? Not lately. Without >putting too fine a point on this, Canadian currency has been laying a >Euro-style smackdown on the US greenback. What this means to you: less >purchasing power. > >Wait, there's more. You think you're living in a high-tax state right now? >Hahahahahaha. > >7. The biggest argument against immigrating to Canada is: You're going in >the wrong direction! With all due respect to our northern neighbors, anyone >who is anyone bolted years ago. > >Peter Jennings, Mike Myers, Joni Mitchell, Jim Carrey, Frank Gehry (would >they take him back?) -- the list goes on and on. Have talent, will travel >-- southward. You might want to ask yourself why. > >So please, think twice. They don't want you, and we would prefer that you >stay. If the new administration is a problem, just don't turn on your >television for the next four years. > > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From pcapelli at gmail.com Sat Nov 6 10:39:13 2004 From: pcapelli at gmail.com (Pete Capelli) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:39:13 -0500 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> References: <20041106153941.GX1457@leitl.org> <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 18:25:19 +0000, Justin wrote: > Not true. Saddam had 100% turnout, and won 100% of the vote. Does that make his election more legitimate to you? -- Pete Capelli pcapelli at ieee.org http://www.capelli.org PGP Key ID:0x829263B6 "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 From nobody at dizum.com Sat Nov 6 04:40:02 2004 From: nobody at dizum.com (Nomen Nescio) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:40:02 +0100 (CET) Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue Message-ID: <68af3a36547b5a13efcf330e080e2ef8@dizum.com> John Young: > Tyler, > > Commie is the term used here like is nazi used elsewhere > as the most fearsome if thoughtless epithet. Nazi here is a > term of endearment, and also admirable role model by some. > > Calling someone both is not allowed, check the FAQ under impurity. > > Tim May, praise Allah, always claimed cypherpunks was a fair and > balanced forum thanks to the one person of the left here who > was fingered affectionately like a house rodent, an easy target for > errant shooters. > > CJ is not to be recalled, ever. > > Jim Bell still sends "very important" legal papers, the latest > yesterday, which describe the way things should be understood. But > who can believe an MIT chemist political prisoner. > > CJ and Jim jailed by the Democratic freedom-fighters. "CJ" is "CJ Parker", who posted a few emails to this list back in early 2003? I guess I haven't been around long enough to know all famous cpunks who have been posting to the list. Maybe someone could tell in short who those were, I guess there are one or two on the list who weren't around and would appreciate the stories. I think I remember having read about Bell, something about him having threatened FBI agents or something? Does Jim Bell post emails somewhere today? From mv at cdc.gov Sat Nov 6 09:52:42 2004 From: mv at cdc.gov (Mv) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 14:52:42 -0300 Subject: Hi Message-ID: :) [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which had a name of price.scr] From emc at artifact.psychedelic.net Sat Nov 6 14:57:20 2004 From: emc at artifact.psychedelic.net (Eric Cordian) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 14:57:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: <20041106160732.W61334@ubzr.zsa.bet> Message-ID: <200411062257.iA6MvKb0003204@artifact.psychedelic.net> J.A. Terranson wrote: > The fact is that those who did not vote effectively voted for Shrub. You > are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. Inaction > is not good enough. This would only be true if the President were elected by popular vote. In states where one candidate had a huge majority, the results would not have been changed. Also, voting is in some sense political manipulation to blame the population for the actions of their government. Everyone who votes is a co-conspirator, and the argument is made that those who don't vote have no right to dissent. Any government that requires that I vote, or the torture and war crimes are "my fault", is broken to start with. The fundamental definition of Democracy is still "Your neighbors tell you what to do." I don't tolerate my neighbors telling me what to do, particularly my neighbors in the Confederacy, which we should have let keep their Negro guest-workers and drop out of the union when the opportunity presented itself. Now they outnumber us, and we are paying for it. The only government I need is "Leave me alone, or face serious consequences." Similarly, I leave others alone. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law" From measl at mfn.org Sat Nov 6 14:07:05 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 16:07:05 -0600 (CST) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20041106160544.O61334@ubzr.zsa.bet> On Sat, 6 Nov 2004, Tyler Durden wrote: > In other words, he won because some hillbilly was afraid that the guy at the > local 7-11 was going to blow up his chicked farm. Precisely. > So: A 'moral values' question for Cypherpunks. Does this election indict the > American people as being complicit in the crime known as "Operation > Freedom"? (I notice everyone forgot about that name.) Complicit? Thats *technically* correct, but not nearly strong enough. > -TD -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From measl at mfn.org Sat Nov 6 14:08:29 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 16:08:29 -0600 (CST) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> References: <20041106153941.GX1457@leitl.org> <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> Message-ID: <20041106160732.W61334@ubzr.zsa.bet> On Sat, 6 Nov 2004, Justin wrote: > On 2004-11-06T16:39:41+0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > On Sat, Nov 06, 2004 at 08:46:17AM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: > > > > > So: A 'moral values' question for Cypherpunks. Does this election indict > > > the American people as being complicit in the crime known as "Operation > > > > Of course. What kind of question is that? Regardless of voting fraud, about > > half of US has voted for four more years of the same. Guilty. > > Not true. The fact is that those who did not vote effectively voted for Shrub. You are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. Inaction is not good enough. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From eugen at leitl.org Sat Nov 6 07:39:41 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 16:39:41 +0100 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20041106153941.GX1457@leitl.org> On Sat, Nov 06, 2004 at 08:46:17AM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: > So: A 'moral values' question for Cypherpunks. Does this election indict > the American people as being complicit in the crime known as "Operation Of course. What kind of question is that? Regardless of voting fraud, about half of US has voted for four more years of the same. Guilty. > Freedom"? (I notice everyone forgot about that name.) Huh? What was the question, again? -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From justin-cypherpunks at soze.net Sat Nov 6 10:25:19 2004 From: justin-cypherpunks at soze.net (Justin) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 18:25:19 +0000 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: <20041106153941.GX1457@leitl.org> References: <20041106153941.GX1457@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> On 2004-11-06T16:39:41+0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sat, Nov 06, 2004 at 08:46:17AM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: > > > So: A 'moral values' question for Cypherpunks. Does this election indict > > the American people as being complicit in the crime known as "Operation > > Of course. What kind of question is that? Regardless of voting fraud, about > half of US has voted for four more years of the same. Guilty. Not true. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/03/voter.turnout.ap/ "[Curtis] Gans puts the total turnout at nearly 120 million people. That represents just under 60% of eligible voters..." 120m * 100%/60% = 200 million eligible voters (The U.S. population according to census.gov was 290,809,777 as of 2003-07-01 http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/ "Bush Vote: 59,459,765" Let's generously round that up to 65 million. 65m/200m = 32.5% of eligible voters voted for Bush 65m/290.8m = 22.4% of the U.S. population voted for Bush I can't find an accurate number of registered voters, but one article suggests 15% of registered voters don't vote. That means there are probably around 141m registered voters. Bush didn't even win majority support from /those/. 65m/141m = 46% of registered voters voted for Bush -- The old must give way to the new, falsehood must become exposed by truth, and truth, though fought, always in the end prevails. -- L. Ron Hubbard From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 15:38:21 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 18:38:21 -0500 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue In-Reply-To: <200411060931.AA659620004@echeque.com> References: <200411060931.AA659620004@echeque.com> Message-ID: At 9:31 AM -0800 11/6/04, James Donald wrote: >As George Orwell observed, anyone who thinks there is a significant >difference between nazis and commies is in favor of one or the other. I'm going to have hunt that one up for my .sig file. Thank you. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From sunder at sunder.net Sat Nov 6 16:10:11 2004 From: sunder at sunder.net (Sunder) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 19:10:11 -0500 (est) Subject: Broward machines count backward In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It sounds suspiciously like an int16 issue. 32K is close enough to 32767 after which a 16 bit integer goes negative when incremented. Which is odd because it should roll over, not count backwards. perhaps they did something like this: note the use of abs on reporting. int16 votes[MAX_CANDIDATES]; void add_a_vote(uint8 candidate) { if (candidate>MAX_CANDIDATES) return; votes[candidate]++; } void report(void) { int i; for (i=0; i:and our people, and neither do we." -G. W. Bush, 2004.08.05 \/|\/ /|\ : \|/ + v + : War is Peace, freedom is slavery, Bush is President. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Sat, 6 Nov 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: > > > > Palm Beach Post > > Broward machines count backward > > By Eliot Kleinberg > > Palm Beach Post Staff Writer > > Friday, November 05, 2004 > > > FORT LAUDERDALE - It had to happen. Things were just going too smoothly. > > Early Thursday, as Broward County elections officials wrapped up after a > long day of canvassing votes, something unusual caught their eye. Tallies > should go up as more votes are counted. That's simple math. But in some > races, the numbers had gone . . . down. > > > Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes > per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward. From chris.kuethe at gmail.com Sat Nov 6 18:40:47 2004 From: chris.kuethe at gmail.com (Chris Kuethe) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 19:40:47 -0700 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue In-Reply-To: References: <200411060931.AA659620004@echeque.com> Message-ID: <91981b3e041106184057d0a87b@mail.gmail.com> Fun bits to read, somewhat related to Owell and the perceived notional differences between various... extremists. http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/f/fa/fascism.html http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/opinion/essays/storgaard1.html http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm Certainly one could infer from reading "Politics and the English Language" that Orwell could've or would've thought such a thing. If anyone finds it before I do, post a link, will ya? CK On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 18:38:21 -0500, R.A. Hettinga wrote: > > At 9:31 AM -0800 11/6/04, James Donald wrote: > >As George Orwell observed, anyone who thinks there is a significant > >difference between nazis and commies is in favor of one or the other. > > I'm going to have hunt that one up for my .sig file. > > Thank you. > > > > Cheers, > RAH > > -- > ----------------- > R. A. Hettinga > The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation > 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA > "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, > [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to > experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' > > -- GDB has a 'break' feature; why doesn't it have 'fix' too? From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 16:42:10 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 19:42:10 -0500 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> References: <20041106153941.GX1457@leitl.org> <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> Message-ID: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 6:25 PM +0000 11/6/04, Justin wrote: >65m/141m = 46% of registered voters voted for Bush Of course, you can invert the math and say the same about Kerry, plus Bush's 3-something million margin, I'm afraid. Hell, Rush said exactly the same thing on Friday. :-). Numerology doesn't win elections, I'm afraid. Remember, boys and girls, government itself is the not-so-polite fiction that the highwayman is acting in our best interest at all times if we pay him enough to leave us, individually, alone. So, as Brooks indirectly proves, rather than blathering here, or elsewhere, about "values", or "equality", or "fairness", or "justice", or other lofty nonsense, electoral or otherwise, look at how well a given *culture* and its implicit force-control mechanism, does *economically* for its citizenry (a parasite doesn't kill its own host, and all that...), besides just being able to kill more and better soldiers on the other side of the battlefield is actually putting the cart before the horse. The fact that increasing personal liberty results in such higher per-capita income, and thus the ability to project force than reducing liberty does isn't necessarily the same level of metaphysical mystery as the fact that some kinds of mathematics predict reality, but it's close enough for, heh, government work. Someday, hopefully, financial cryptography will reduce transaction costs by actually *increasing* privacy (see math and reality, liberty and income, above), the *economic* rationale for force-monopoly will go away, and *then* we can all exhume Lysander Spooner, prop him up, and talk about constitutions of no authority, or whatever. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQY1vN8PxH8jf3ohaEQKyGACbB6XlMBht53x48ugBvJQqOUJ/4P8AnRlX 4M/JvqrHdU9LvnTlrEilGzoK =D4M9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 16:43:23 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 19:43:23 -0500 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue In-Reply-To: <20041106190808.GH1457@leitl.org> References: <200411060931.AA659620004@echeque.com> <20041106190808.GH1457@leitl.org> Message-ID: At 8:08 PM +0100 11/6/04, Eugen Leitl wrote: >Cypherpunks write code. Right. That's it. Wanna write me a bearer mint? For free? ;-) Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 16:45:19 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 19:45:19 -0500 Subject: No, Canada! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 11:42 AM -0800 11/6/04, John Young wrote: >capitalist There you go, speaking marxist again... ;-) Cheers, RAH "Capitalism" is totalitarian for "economics"... -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From eugen at leitl.org Sat Nov 6 11:08:08 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 20:08:08 +0100 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue In-Reply-To: <200411060931.AA659620004@echeque.com> References: <200411060931.AA659620004@echeque.com> Message-ID: <20041106190808.GH1457@leitl.org> On Sat, Nov 06, 2004 at 09:31:24AM -0800, James Donald wrote: > I routinely call people like you nazi-commies. How novel and interesting. Cut the rhetoric, get on with the program. Cypherpunks write code. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Fri Nov 5 23:10:49 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 20:10:49 +1300 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ocorrain at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Tiarn=E1n_=D3_Corr=E1in?=) writes: >The Russians (for example) conquered Hitler's capital, Berlin. And I believe >the Russian zone in Germany was larger than any of the others, reflecting the >fact that Stalin bore most of entire burden of defeating Germany, >uncomfortable as it may be. The figure that's usually quoted is that 80% of German's military force was directed against Russia. Of the remaining 20%, a lot had already been engaged by France, the UK (via the BEF, the RAF, North Africa), Greece, etc etc before the US got involved in Europe. So the Russians should get most of the credit. Peter. From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Fri Nov 5 23:20:05 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 20:20:05 +1300 Subject: In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "R.A. Hettinga" writes: >These were not the sort of sporting arrows skillfully shot toward gayly >colored targets by Victorian archery societies (charmingly described by Mr. >Soar in later chapters) but heavy "bodkin pointed battle shafts" that went >through the armor of man and horse. That's the traditional Agincourt interpretation. More modern ones (backed up by actual tests with arrows of the time against armour, in which the relatively soft metal of the arrows was rather ineffective against the armour) tend to favour the muddy ground trapping men and horses, lack of room to manoeuver/compression effects, and arrows killing horses out from under the knights, at which point see the muddy ground section. Obviously the machine- gun effect of the arrows was going to cause a number of minor injuries, and would be lethal to unarmoured troops, but they weren't quite the wonder-weapon they're made out to be. (There were other problems as well, e.g. the unusually high death toll and removal of "ancient aristocratic lineages" was caused by English commoners who weren't aware of the tradition of capturing opposing nobles and having them ransomed back, rather than hacking them to pieces on the spot. Again, arrows didn't have much to do with the loss of so many nobles). Peter. From jamesd at echeque.com Sat Nov 6 21:31:27 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 21:31:27 -0800 Subject: In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418DB32F.8050804@echeque.com> -- Peter Gutmann wrote: > That's the traditional Agincourt interpretation. More modern ones > (backed up by actual tests with arrows of the time against armour, > in which the relatively soft metal of the arrows was rather > ineffective against the armour) I find this very hard to believe. Post links, or give citations. > (There were other problems as well, e.g. the unusually high death > toll and > removal of "ancient aristocratic lineages" was caused by English > commoners who weren't aware of the tradition of capturing opposing > nobles and having them ransomed back, rather than hacking them to > pieces on the spot. Wrong French nobles were taken prisoner in the usual fashion, but executed because the English King commanded them executed. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG R2tc27UGwjykTsUjBSVNU/VakHCZzthZfJpceSzP 49ifULPODBC+M+WzhF3jxg1W5+UV7ABaMjvVW7R8b From jamesd at echeque.com Sat Nov 6 21:44:08 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 21:44:08 -0800 Subject: In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down In-Reply-To: <418DB32F.8050804@echeque.com> References: <418DB32F.8050804@echeque.com> Message-ID: <418DB628.8050203@echeque.com> -- Peter Gutmann wrote: > That's the traditional Agincourt interpretation. More modern ones > (backed up by actual tests with arrows of the time against armour, > in which the relatively soft metal of the arrows was rather > ineffective against the armour) You have this garbled. According to http://www.royalarmouries.org/extsite/view.jsp?sectionId=1025 by the fifteen hundreds, the very finest armor could deflect almost all bodkin arrows - but very few could afford a complete set of the very finest armor - and the battle of Agincourt occurred well before the fifteen hundreds. Presumably the armor improved (and became heavier and more expensive) in response to the battle of Agincourt. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG wY4Gt1+GdEkqgNLQxKrMduPJSg/k6DEUpWEGeADc 48Orz+xAb/+RsojnqG7H/GLzb+Ll5QWvCCvF9MkuG From rah at shipwright.com Sat Nov 6 18:48:49 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:48:49 -0500 Subject: Believe it or not, it wasn't just rednecks who voted for Bush Message-ID: The Telegraph Believe it or not, it wasn't just rednecks who voted for Bush By Mark Steyn (Filed: 07/11/2004) The big question after Tuesday was: will it just be more of the same in George W Bush's second term, or will there be a change of tone? And apparently it's the latter. The great European thinkers have decided that instead of doing another four years of lame Bush-is-a-moron cracks they're going to do four years of lame Americans-are-morons cracks. Inaugurating the new second-term outreach was Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror, who attributed the President's victory to: "The self-righteous, gun-totin', military-lovin', sister-marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport-ownin' rednecks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land 'free and strong'." Well, that's certainly why I supported Bush, but I'm not sure it entirely accounts for the other 59,459,765. Forty five per cent of Hispanics voted for the President, as did 25 per cent of Jews, and 23 per cent of gays. And this coalition of common-or-garden rednecks, Hispanic rednecks, sinister Zionist rednecks, and lesbian rednecks who enjoy hitting on their gay-loathin' sisters expanded its share of the vote across the entire country - not just in the Bush states but in the Kerry states, too. In all but six states, the Republican vote went up: the urinating rednecks have increased their number not just in Texas and Mississippi but in Massachusetts and California, both of which have Republican governors. You can drive from coast to coast across the middle of the country and never pass through a single county that voted for John Kerry: it's one continuous cascade of self-righteous urine from sea to shining sea. States that were swing states in 2000 - West Virginia, Arkansas - are now solidly Republican, and once solidly Democrat states - Iowa, Wisconsin - are now swingers. The redneck states push hard up against the Canadian border, where if your neck's red it's frostbite. Bush's incontinent rednecks are everywhere: they're so numerous they're running out of sisters to bunk up with. Who exactly is being self-righteous here? In Britain and Europe, there seem to be two principal strains of Bush-loathing. First, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be an idiot - as in the Mirror headline "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" Second, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be a Nazi - as in Oliver James, who told The Guardian: "I was too depressed to even speak this morning. I thought of my late mother, who read Mein Kampf when it came out in the 1930s [sic] and thought, 'Why doesn't anyone see where this is leading?' " Mr James is a clinical psychologist. If smug Europeans are going to coast on moron-Fascist sneers indefinitely, they'll be dooming themselves to ever more depressing mornings-after in the 2006 midterms, the 2008 presidential election, 2010, and beyond: America's resistance to the conventional wisdom of the rest of the developed world is likely to intensify in the years ahead. This widening gap is already a point of pride to the likes of B J Kelly of Killiney, who made the following observation on Friday's letters page in The Irish Times: "Here in the EU we objected recently to high office for a man who professed the belief that abortion and gay marriages are essentially evil. Over in the US such an outlook could have won him the presidency." I'm not sure who he means by "we". As with most decisions taken in the corridors of Europower, the views of Killiney and Knokke and Krakow didn't come into it one way or the other. B J Kelly is referring to Rocco Buttiglione, the mooted European commissioner whose views on homosexuality, single parenthood, etc would have been utterly unremarkable for an Italian Catholic 30 years ago. Now Europe's secular elite has decided they're beyond the pale and such a man should have no place in public life. And B J Kelly sees this as evidence of how much more enlightened Europe is than America. That's fine. But what happens if the European elite should decide a whole lot of other stuff is beyond the pale, too, some of it that B J Kelly is quite partial to? In affirming the traditional definition of marriage in 11 state referenda, from darkest Mississippi to progressive enlightened Kerry-supporting Oregon, the American people were not expressing their "gay-loathin' ", so much as declining to go the Kelly route and have their betters tell them what they can think. They're not going to have marriage redefined by four Massachusetts judges and a couple of activist mayors. That doesn't make them Bush theo-zombies marching in lockstep to the gay lynching, just freeborn citizens asserting their right to dissent from today's established church - the stifling coercive theology of political correctness enforced by a secular episcopate. As Americans were voting on marriage and marijuana and other matters, the Rotterdam police were destroying a mural by Chris Ripke that he'd created to express his disgust at the murder of Theo van Gogh by Islamist crazies. Ripke's painting showed an angel and the words "Thou Shalt Not Kill". Unfortunately, his workshop is next to a mosque, and the imam complained that the mural was "racist", so the cops arrived, destroyed it, arrested the television journalists filming it and wiped their tape. Maybe that would ring a bell with Oliver James's mum. The restrictions on expression that B J Kelly sees as evidence of European enlightenment are regarded as profoundly unhealthy by most Americans. When one examines Brian Reade's anatomy of redneck disfigurements - "gun-totin', military-lovin', abortion-hatin' " - most of them are about the will to survive, as individuals and as a society. Americans tote guns because they're assertive citizens, not docile subjects of a permanent governing class. They love their military because they think there's something contemptible about Europeans preening and posing as a great power when they can't even stop some nickel'n'dime Balkan genital-severers piling up hundreds of thousands of corpses on their borders. And, if Americans do "hate abortion", is Mr Reade saying he loves it? It's at least partially responsible for the collapsed birthrates of post-Christian Europe. However superior the EU is to the US, it will only last as long as Mr Reade's generation: the design flaw of the radical secular welfare state is that it depends on a traditionally religious society birthrate to sustain it. True, you can't be a redneck in Spain or Italy: when the birthrates are 1.1 and 1.2 children per couple, there are no sisters to shag. What was revealing about this election campaign was how little the condescending Europeans understand even about the side in American politics they purport to agree with - witness The Guardian's disastrous intervention in Clark County. Simon Schama last week week defined the Bush/Kerry divide as "Godly America" and "Worldly America", hailing the latter as "pragmatic, practical, rational and sceptical". That's exactly the wrong way round: it's Godly America that is rational and sceptical - especially of Euro-delusions. Uncowed by Islamists, undeferential to government, unshrivelled in its birthrates, Bush's redneck America is a more reliable long-term bet. Europe's media would do their readers a service if they stopped condescending to it. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jamesd at echeque.com Sat Nov 6 21:50:29 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 21:50:29 -0800 Subject: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue In-Reply-To: <20041106190808.GH1457@leitl.org> References: <200411060931.AA659620004@echeque.com> <20041106190808.GH1457@leitl.org> Message-ID: <418DB7A5.5030207@echeque.com> -- James Donald: > > I routinely call people like you nazi-commies. Eugen Leitl wrote: > How novel and interesting. > > Cut the rhetoric, get on with the program. Cypherpunks write code. I also write code, unlike people like you. See for example www.echeque.com/Kong --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG iRF6jCg0M9tIDOFv9wmxaZxcMi0N2C6vQn8oF4IO 42OhxMux7d4g+wGUgQBqxmiP8H6QXmmOGpbq5bqCd From iang at systemics.com Sat Nov 6 19:21:42 2004 From: iang at systemics.com (Ian Grigg) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 22:21:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Your source code, for sale In-Reply-To: <20041105181248.7F09757E2A@finney.org> References: <20041105181248.7F09757E2A@finney.org> Message-ID: <1576.82.70.142.134.1099797702.squirrel@82.70.142.134> > Enzo Michelangeli writes: >> In the world of international trade, where mutual distrust between buyer >> and seller is often the rule and there is no central authority to >> enforce >> the law, this is traditionally achieved by interposing not less than >> three >> trusted third parties: the shipping line, the opening bank and the >> negotiating bank. > > Interesting. In the e-gold case, both parties have the same bank, > e-gold ltd. The corresponding protocol would be for the buyer to instruct > e-gold to set aside some money which would go to the seller once the > seller supplied a certain receipt. That receipt would be an email return > receipt showing that the seller had sent the buyer the content with hash > so-and-so, using a cryptographic email return-receipt protocol. This is to mix up banking and payment systems. Enzo's description shows banks doing banking - lending money on paper that eventually pays a rate of return. In contrast, in the DGC or digital gold currency world, the issuers of gold like e-gold are payment systems and not banks. The distinction is that a payment system does not issue credit. So, in the e-gold scenario, there would need to be similar third parties independent of the payment system to provide the credit moving in the reverse direction to the goods. In the end it would be much like Enzo's example, with a third party with the seller, a third party with the buyer, and one or two third parties who are dealing the physical goods. There have been some thoughts in the direction of credit creation in the gold community, but nothing of any sustainability has occurred as yet. iang From eugen at leitl.org Sat Nov 6 13:40:47 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 22:40:47 +0100 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> References: <20041106153941.GX1457@leitl.org> <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> Message-ID: <20041106214047.GP1457@leitl.org> On Sat, Nov 06, 2004 at 06:25:19PM +0000, Justin wrote: > Not true. > > http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/03/voter.turnout.ap/ > > "[Curtis] Gans puts the total turnout at nearly 120 million people. > That represents just under 60% of eligible voters..." You didn't vote against a candidate, you tacitly accept whatever other voters decide. For you. There isn't "none of the above" option, unfortunately. > 120m * 100%/60% = 200 million eligible voters (The U.S. population > according to census.gov was 290,809,777 as of 2003-07-01 > > http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/ > "Bush Vote: 59,459,765" > Let's generously round that up to 65 million. > > 65m/200m = 32.5% of eligible voters voted for Bush > 65m/290.8m = 22.4% of the U.S. population voted for Bush > > I can't find an accurate number of registered voters, but one article > suggests 15% of registered voters don't vote. That means there are > probably around 141m registered voters. Bush didn't even win majority > support from /those/. > > 65m/141m = 46% of registered voters voted for Bush Don't mince numbers. About half of those who could and could be bothered to vote voted for more of the same. At least that's how the rest of the world is going to see it. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From jtrjtrjtr2001 at yahoo.com Sun Nov 7 03:35:13 2004 From: jtrjtrjtr2001 at yahoo.com (Sarad AV) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 03:35:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041107113513.69820.qmail@web21203.mail.yahoo.com> --- "R.A. Hettinga" wrote: > When asked about > the issue that most > influenced their vote, voters were given the option > of saying "moral > values." But that phrase can mean anything - or > nothing. Who doesn't vote > on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you > get a misleading result. An american lady during the iraq war told me-"How do you think we will continue to get government benifits without the war?" What it means is open for interpretation. Sarath. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From justin-cypherpunks at soze.net Sat Nov 6 20:34:01 2004 From: justin-cypherpunks at soze.net (Justin) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 04:34:01 +0000 Subject: Supreme Court Issues In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20041107043401.GA25622@arion.soze.net> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/politics/07court.html?partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print We're going to get some extremist anti-abortion, pro-internment, anti-1A, anti-4A, anti-5A, anti-14A, right-wing wacko. Imagine Ashcroft as Chief Justice. I really hope I'm wrong. What happens when the Chief Justice is dead? Can someone close to him (like his secretary) pull the strings on his corpose and "send in" his votes indefinitely, without his being in attendance during the conferences, receiving case briefs from his law clerks, or attending oral arguments? > In the two weeks that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 80, has been > treated for a serious form of thyroid cancer, life at the court has > proceeded without a sense of crisis. The judicial function is shared > by eight other people, with Justice John Paul Stevens, the senior > associate justice, presiding over courtroom sessions and the justices' > private conferences. The administrative tasks are carried out, as they > usually are under the chief justice's direction, by his administrative > assistant, Sally M. Rider, a former federal prosecutor and State > Department lawyer. > > These arrangements can continue almost indefinitely. Nonetheless, as it > has become evident that Chief Justice Rehnquist will not be returning > soon, a sense of sadness and uncertainty has spread throughout the court > and into the wider community of federal judges who have received no more > information than the general public about the chief justice's condition > and prospects. > > Judges have refrained from calling either Chief Justice Rehnquist or Ms. > Rider. "I don't have the nerve," one judge who has worked closely with > the chief justice said Friday. "The vibes I get just aren't good." > > A judge who did call the chief justice's chambers in anticipation of a > visit to Washington was steered away from visiting his home in > Arlington, Va. The justices have sent notes, but it is not clear whether > any have seen or even talked to him. > > Information from official channels has been minimal. The court's press > office would not say whether the chief justice was present for the > justices' regular Friday morning conference, at which they review new > cases and decide which to grant. (He was not.) Nor would the press > office say whether, if he did not attend, he sent in his votes. (He > did.) > The chief justice, it appears, has functioned as his own press > officer. Surely a professional would have cautioned him, on the day it > was announced that he had just undergone a tracheotomy, against making > a public promise to be back at work in a week. Every cancer specialist > whom reporters consulted after the announcement found that prediction > highly implausible. > > And when the chief justice found on Monday that he could not fulfill the > promise, he subtly but unmistakably indicated that the error had been > his own and not his doctors': "According to my doctors, my plan to > return to the office today was too optimistic." > > Chief Justice Rehnquist's statement on Monday said that he was receiving > radiation and chemotherapy on an outpatient basis. Both the aggressive > treatment and the observations of those who have seen him in recent > weeks suggest that the disease is advanced and rapidly progressing. > > A judge who attended a meeting with him in late September said the chief > justice looked well and spoke without the hoarseness that was apparent > by the time the court's new term began Oct. 4; a spreading thyroid tumor > can impinge on the nerves that control the vocal cords. By mid-October, > one court employee who saw the chief justice in his street clothes was > struck by his frailty. "That robe can hide a lot," this employee said. > > The court will hear arguments in this coming week and then again in the > two weeks following the Thanksgiving weekend. It will then go on recess > until Jan. 10. During that substantial interval, people at the court now > appear to think, the chief justice will have a chance to assess his > situation and decide whether to retire. > > Although there seems to be widespread public confusion on this point - > memories have faded in the 18 years since Chief Justice Rehnquist's > contentious confirmation hearing - a chief justice must be separately > nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, even if the > person is already sitting on the Supreme Court. If the president wants > to choose a sitting justice, he can pick any of them, without regard to > seniority. > > Historically, promotion from within has been the exception; only 5 of > the 16 chief justices previously served as associate justices, > including Chief Justice Rehnquist, who spent his first 14 years on > the court as an associate before President Ronald Reagan offered him > a promotion in 1986. > > The timing of his illness, more than two months before the start of the > 109th Congress, raises another prospect: that of a recess appointment to > the court. The Constitution gives the president the power to make > appointments to fill "vacancies that may happen during the recess of the > Senate," although whether and under what circumstances this authority > applies to judges is open to some debate. > > A case recently appealed to the Supreme Court on which the court could > act as early as Monday challenges the validity of President Bush's > appointment of William H. Pryor to a federal appeals court during an > 11-day Congressional recess last February. > > A recess appointment expires at the end of the following session of > Congress unless confirmed by the Senate in the interval - in late 2005 > for any appointments made in the remaining weeks of 2004, or at the > end of the second session of the new Congress, in late 2006, for > appointments made after Jan. 1. > > While there have been 12 recess appointments to the Supreme Court, 9 of > them occurred in the early years of the country. The only 3 recess > appointments in modern times, those of Chief Justice Earl Warren and > Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Potter Stewart, were all made by > President Eisenhower in the 1950's. > > Although the Senate subsequently confirmed those three justices, the > experience left many senators uneasy. While some simply resented the > exercise of presidential power, others argued also that judicial > independence was compromised by the recess-appointed justices' knowledge > that they would be confirmed to lifetime appointments only if the Senate > was satisfied with their performance. > > In 1960, the Senate passed a resolution opposing the practice on a > largely party-line vote, with most Democrats voting for the resolution > and all the Republicans opposed. -- The old must give way to the new, falsehood must become exposed by truth, and truth, though fought, always in the end prevails. -- L. Ron Hubbard From jei at cc.hut.fi Sat Nov 6 20:02:01 2004 From: jei at cc.hut.fi (Jei) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 06:02:01 +0200 (EET) Subject: More Evidence The Vote Was Rigged Message-ID: http://www.rense.com/general59/rig.htm More Evidence The Vote Was Rigged >From Wayne Nash 11-5-4 I don't want rain on the parade but I am getting quite a few emails from various sources citing possible irregularities with the voting process. So, I did a little research myself on the net to see what I could find. As a political scientist I could not resist. Regardless of the veracity of any claim to possible irregularities I suggest that this question of legitimacy of the process needs to be addressed if everyone casting their vote is to feel that their vote is being properly counted. No one can feel disenfranchised in a real democracy. Otherwise, you end up with a dictatorship and not a democracy at all. Unless BOTH sides feel the system is verifiable then you may end up with a banana republic 'democracy'. This is not question of who won the election. It is a matter of much greater importance; the legitimacy of the democratic process itself. Here are a couple of sites which address the issue: 1. http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/ 2. http://www.electoral-vote.com/ On this last web site I found this interesting bit of information: "Various people sent me mail saying that it is awfully fishy that the exit polls and final results were substantially different in some places. I hope someone will follow this up and actually do a careful analysis. Does anyone know of a Website containing all the exit poll data? If we go to computerized voting without a paper trail and the machines can be set up to cheat, that is the end of our democracy. Switching 5 votes per machine is probably all it would take to throw an election and nobody would ever see it unless someone compares the computer totals and exit polls. I am still very concerned about the remark of Walden O'Dell a Republican fund raiser and CEO of Diebold, which makes voting machines saying he would deliver Ohio for President Bush. Someone (not me) should look into this carefully. The major newspapers actually recounted all the votes in Florida last time. Maybe this year's project should be looking at the exit polls. If there are descrepancies between the exit polls and the final results in touch-screen counties but not in paper-ballot counties, that would be a signal. At the very least it could be a good masters thesis for a political science student. The Open voting consortium is a group addressing the subject of verifiable voting." Could there be a possible problem here? Let's see... * In states where there were paper ballots the results exactly matched the exit polls. * In states where there were only electronic 'touch-screen' paperless voting machines Bush showed an inexplicable 5-8 point or more difference from the polls, contradicting otherwise accurate exit polls. * The software used in these voting machines is so sophisticated that you can't even check out the programming because it disappears leaving nothing to verify, no source code, no nothing. Below are 3 articles explaining how these E-voting programs work. The man who published these articles is apparently an expert on this E-voting subject and a computer scientist. Article 1 http://www.southbaymobilization.org/newsroom/ articles/04.0303.ADeafeningSilence_article.htm Article 2 http://www.southbaymobilization.org/newsroom/ articles/04.0618.SecretAgentPrograms_article.htm Article 3 http://www.southbaymobilization.org/newsroom/ articles/04.0701.EVoting_TheNewCloseUpMagic_article.htm Another site takes the subject seriously... http://www.rense.com/general59/steI.HTM Highlight: * SoCalDem has done a statistical analysis... ...on several swing states, and EVERY STATE that has EVoting but no paper trails has an unexplained advantage for Bush of around +5% when comparing exit polls to actual results. * In EVERY STATE that has paper audit trails on their EVoting, the exit poll results match the actual results reported within the margin of error. * Analysis of the polling data vs actual data and voting systems supports the hypothesis that evoting may be to blame in the discrepancies. * The media was a bit taken aback that the results didn't match the exit polls AT ALL. Most of the commentators were scratching their head in disbelief at the results. The media has gracefully claimed they "just got it wrong." Some examples? WISCONSIN: Kerry leads Female voters by 7%, Bush leads male voters by 7%. Male vs. Female voter turnout is 47% M, 53% F. That means Kerry statistically has a 7% edge in exit polling in Wisconsin. Actual results however show Bush ahead by 1%, an unexplained difference of 8%. NEVADA: Kerry leads in the exit polls by a clear margin, but is still behind in the reported results. This state is even closer. Actual is just 1% favor of Bush. Exit polls show Kerry with a wider margin. Women favored Kerry by 8% here out of 52% of total voters. Men favored Bush by just 6% out of 48% of total voters. Actual reported results don't match exit polling AT ALL in Nevada. Easy Programming? According to the programmer cited above here is how easy it is to "make magic" ... We need COUNTERS - (B) = Bush; (K) = Kerry; (V) = Vote; (T) =Tally 1. If V = B, add 1 to B 2. If T = 8, add 1 to B; Clear T; Skip 3 3. If V = K, add 1 to K; Add 1 to T This extremely simple bit of programming would shift 12% of the vote from Kerry to Bush, it would defy exit polls, and it would make it look like Bush had a huge popular win. _____ Feel free to pass this on to your Republican and Democratic friends. If you are American, this should concern you regardless of who won this election or wins future elections. If your process is flawed your democracy is flawed and everything you believe in is on the line. I am sure that people on the ground are acting in good faith and voting according to their values and beliefs. It is the people at the top that concern me. From jei at cc.hut.fi Sat Nov 6 20:02:15 2004 From: jei at cc.hut.fi (Jei) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 06:02:15 +0200 (EET) Subject: Observable Elections Message-ID: http://www.infosecwriters.com/hhworld/hh9/voting.txt Hitchhiker's World (Issue #9) http://www.infosecwriters.com/hhworld/ Observable Elections -------------------- Vipul Ved Prakash November 2004 This is an interesting time for electronic voting. India, the largest democracy in the world, went completely paper- free for its general elections earlier this year. For the first time, some 387 million people expressed their electoral right electronically. Despite initial concerns about security and correctness of the system, the election process was a smashing success. Over a million electronic voting machines (EVMs) were deployed, 8000 metric tonnes of paper saved[1] and the results made public within few hours of the final vote. Given the quarrelsome and heavily litigated nature of Indian democracy, a lot of us were expecting post-election drama, but only a few, if any, fingers were found pointing. Things didn't fare so well in the United States. The Dieobold electronic machines, slated for use in many states for the November 2004 Federal elections, turned out to have rather large security holes. Cryptography experts, Avi Rubin et al, did a formal analysis of the machines and found that they could be subverted to introduce votes that were never casted[2]. An independent government-backed analysis confirmed this[3] and concluded that the Diebold voting system "as implemented in policy, procedure, and technology, is at a high risk of compromise." It is clear, even to a cursory observer, that Diebold systems are sloppily designed, never mind the sloppiness is a function of incompetence or intent. The recent controversy from the "Black Box Voting" security advisory titled "the Diebold GEMS central tabulator contains a stunning security hole"[4] has added to the confusion. It claims that a code entered at a remote location can replace the real vote count with a fabricated one. This security hole, discovered last year, is still not fixed says the advisory. In response, Diebold claims that this is possible, but only in debug mode, which does little to make people confortable. What is disturbing to me as a technologist is the burgeoning public opinion that electronics is an unviable medium for conducting the serious business of elections. Over the last year I've seen numerous formal reports and articles in popular press[5] equating the failures of Diebold systems with the untenability of electronic voting. This is rather silly. Diebold systems are not only poorly engineered, they are also seriously flawed in design. Even if they were immaculately bug-free, they are so far from what electronic voting systems should be, that I have trouble categorizing them as "voting systems". "Electronic counters" is more accurate. Various augmentations have been proposed to Diebold systems; most revolve around parallel paper trails. Verified Voting[6] for example proposes that a vote be printed based on the voter's touch-screen selection, so the voter can touch, feel and verify their vote before casting it into a traditional ballet box. These votes would then be processed with an OCR type machine to compute a cumulative result and the physical votes would be saved so an independent party can verify the electronic result at a latter date. This is a reasonable tradeoff -- after all integrity of elections is way more important than saving trees and time. While this is the best recommendation for the upcoming elections, it subtly promotes the primacy of paper and distrust in electrons. We know that paper elections are no more secure. The history of vote tampering in paper based elections is quite illustrious (I'll simply refer the gentle reader to [7]) and the reason electronics was considered in the first place was to eliminate such tampering. Verified Voting recommends that count of the physical votes is to be considered superior than that of the electronic counterparts in case of a difference. What happens if the process of this count is tampered using traditional methods? We are back to square one. The central point that I want to get across in this paper is that the promise of electronic voting is not merely a quicker, slightly more secure and ecologically enlightened replacement for paper elections. Electronic voting, if implemented correctly, could be a major qualitative leap, not only changing the way in which we approach democratic elections, but also the the way in which we expect a democratic government to function. Cryptographic Integrity I want to draw attention to the work done by cryptographic community in the last 20 years to study, formalize and solve many of the problems of Internet Voting. This area of work is focused on building election systems that leave behind a trail of mathematical proofs of the integrity of the voting process. With mathematical solutions to the common issues of vote tampering, it becomes unnecessary to trust election officials and it becomes possible to build voting systems that are open and universally verifiable. A voting system for appointing a democratic government has certain "ideal properties". These are rather obvious, but I recount them for the purpose of this discussion. First, all votes must be counted exactly like they were casted. Altering a vote, or leaving one out from the final tally must be impossible. Ballot stuffing, ie. artificial injection of invalid votes must be impossible as well. The system should reject non-eligible voters, and ensure eligible users can cast only a single vote. And, finally, votes must be absolutely anonymous -- even the voter should be unable to prove the way in which they voted. Systems like Diebold's depend on large-scale observation to uphold the ideal properties. Large-scale observation is hard, and once an act of tampering is done, there is little that can be done to detect or correct it. The attacks such as the one described by the Black Box Voting advisory are particularly heinous, since they compromise the entire election process. The ideal properties are true in paper elections when they are implemented perfectly, but the nature of paper precludes proofs of correctness without compromising anonymity. The problems are much the same as in the "Electronic Counter" systems; without correctness proofs, it is largely infeasible to detect and correct tampering. Cryptographers have been trying to emulate the property of anonymity that is inherent to paper when it us used as cash or votes. The research in the field has led to invention of several mathematical primitives and computing systems that not only model paper but go beyond to provide proofs of the properties they emulate. Techniques like blind signatures, homomorphic encryption, digital mixes and onion routing have been used to build systems that provide strong anonymity. The pioneering cryptographer David Chaum introduced the blind signature in order to build permit truly anonymous interaction on the Internet[8]. Since then, they have been applied to all manner of problems from untraceable electronic cash to electronic voting schemes. Blind signatures are a class of digital signatures that allow a document to be signed without revealing its contents. The effect is similar to placing a document and a sheet of carbon paper inside an envelope. When the envelope is signed, the signature transfers to the document and remains on it even when the envelope is removed. In his paper, Chaum hinted that blind signatures could be used for secret ballot elections. Fujioka, Okamoto, and Ohta[9] created the first significant blind signature based voting protocol, which made it practical to use blind signatures in democratic elections. However, some problems were discovered in their work, most notably the system's vulnerablity to a corrupt election authority. I present a system, dubbed ``Athens'', that builds on their work, but solves several problems in their model. I also focus on a real-world election system, rather than an Internet one, and adopt a pragmatic approach, in that I make use of physical resources like volunteers and physical infrastructure usually available for large-scale democratic elections. Athens also borrows elements and thinking from the Sensus[10] system and David Chaum's recent work on Visual Cryptography[11]. Design of Athens The basic procedure for conducting a democratic election is fairly standard. The procedure has four tasks: Registration, Validation, Collection and Tallying. In Athens, these four tasks are carried out with a few specialized machines and software, most of which are connected through the Internet. While Athens employs an Election Authority to oversee the process of elections, it does away with the dependence on trustworthiness of one. Athens philosophy is that there are no truly non-partisan parties; even the Election Authority can't be completely trusted. The Athens model is closer to a "game" between contesting parties, such that the only way to cheat in the game is for all competitors to collude - an axiomatic impossibility. The Election Authority performs tactical tasks to optimize the election process, but all tasks performed by the Authority are open to review by competing parties. Registration Registration is the process of determining eligible voters, and is conducted by the "Registrar" -- a distributed authority put in place by the Election Authority. The Athens registration process involves validating voters (through traditional means) and registering their "Voter Public Key" in the "Register." The corresponding "Voter Secret Key" remains with the voter, magnetically encoded (or bar coded for cheaper implementation) on a "Voting Card". The keys are generated through the "Voting Card Creator Machine". The Card Creator Machine is also implemented as software that can be used by a voter on their home computer. It is not hard to imagine Card Creators installed in local registration offices or even at Kinko's and shopping malls, where they charge a few dollars for generating a card. Fairness in design is important, because Card Creators could compromise the security of the system by storing the key pairs they generate. A card creator is mostly an RSA key generator - it needs computing power of a 300 Mhz PC, and is constructed fairly cheaply. Once the voter enters their personal information into the machine, it spits out two cards: one with the public key, that is handed over to the Registrar and the other with the secret key and identification information required by the Election Authority (like the social security number of the voter.) The second card is known as the "Voting Card" and is used to validate the voter at the time of elections. Both cards also contain a large random number, known as the Voter Id. This is used throughout the voting process to facilitate lookups in the Register without compromising the privacy of the voter. Once all voters have handed their Voter Public Key Card over to the Registrar, the registration process is considered to be complete. As with traditional elections, there is a cut- off date for this process. On completion of registration, the Election Authority hands the Register over to all the competitors. The competitors then check every 1 in 1000 entries (or more according to their capacity) to ensure that they belong to a legitimate voter, i.e. it isn't a fake entry inserted by a corrupt competitor to stuff the ballot. This process is woefully lacking in elections of today, and a hence a major vector for election fraud. Mathematics can do little to alleviate the dangers of registering fake voters, but competitors who depend on the correctness of the Register and raise funds for the purpose can easily perform this task. Register verification would be a lucrative business for independent professional services organizations, so it is not hard to imagine such organizations sprouting up to assume delegation of this responsibility. The competitors also put the Register on the Internet before the election so that voters can ensure their voter key is present in all copies of the Register. When requested, each competing party provides a digitally signed proof that the voter is registered to vote, i.e. their key is present in the Register. The voter, if denied the right to vote, can take this proof to a court of law. A pre-voting verification of eligibility limits the kind of fiasco that occurred in Florida during the Presidential elections of 2000, where a large number of people were denied vote. Validation In most electronic voting protocols, there exists the notion of the "Validator" - a party that holds the Register and validates voters during the election. In Athens, the competing parties, that were handed a copy of the Register in the previous step, all serve as Validators. Athens, therefore, is a multi-validator system. It is reasonable to assume that independents or fiscally constrained parties would team up and have a single Validator represent them. Validators are connected to the Internet and run Validation software, that accepts validation requests over a TCP port. The Validators are firewall'ed off to accept data only from certain IP addresses. The Electronic Voting Machines talk to the Validators via a Proxy. EVMs could theoretically talk directly to Validators, but the reasons for using a proxy will become apparent later. The Proxy is operated by the Election Authority and observed by representatives from all competing parties. Validators have their own RSA key pair, the public portion of which is published widely over the Internet. They also maintain two lists (other than the Register). This is the list of voters who have casted a vote and a list of corresponding validation requests. Before the commencement of the election, the Election Authority chooses a a random number which is known as the "Election Number". The only property of this number is its uniqueness to the election - it should not have been used in a previous election. The Election Number is distributed to all Validators. Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) used in Athens are quite unlike Diebold's or the ones used in the Indian elections. Athens' EVMs are simply "agents" that vote on behalf of the voter. Each EVM has an Id and a RSA key pair. The public part of the EVM key is published widely over the Internet. Communications initiated by the EVM are signed with EVMs secret key. The elections are considered formally commenced, when the Validators broadcast the Election Number and their public keys to EVMs via the Proxy. The Athens Voting Protocol The voter enters a private booth and swipes their Voting Card on the EVM. The EVM reads the secret key and the Voter Id off the Card. The EVM has a little printer attached to it, much like a cash register receipt printer, on which it prints out the Voter Id. It the sends the voter Id off to the Validators via the proxy to initiate a "voting session" on behalf of the voter. If the voter has already casted a vote, Validators return a "proof" of previously casted vote. The proof and its implications are discussed a little later. If there's no previous vote, the Validators send a positive acknowledgment and the EVM asks the voter to cast a ballot. The voter enters their vote using the on-screen display. The EVM concatenates the Voter's choice with the Election Number (EN) and the result is encrypted with a secret key (randomly generated) using a symmetric cipher like AES. The encrypted ballot is then blinded. At this point, the EVM has: Voter Id + Blind(Encrypted(Ballot . EN)) The blinded ballot is then signed with the voter's secret key. The EVM also signs the EN with the Voter's key. The EVM now has: Voter Id + VoterSignature(EN) + VoterSignature(Blind(Encrypted(Ballot . EN))) + Blind(Encrypted(Ballot . EN)) The EVM sends the signed, blinded ballot over to the the Proxy, that sends it to all Validators. Upon receipt, a Validator looks up the public key corresponding to the Voter Id and uses it to check the voter signature. If the voter signature is valid the Validator signs the blind with its own key. It adds the Voter Id to the list of voters who have casted a vote and keeps, in another list, the original blinded request, the signed EN, and the timestamp of request as a proof of the casted vote. It sends the signed blinded ballot back to the Proxy, that forwards it to the originating EVM. The data packet contains: EVM Id + Voter Id + ValidatorSignature(Blind(Encrypted(Ballot . EN))) If the Validator can't validate the signature, it sends a VERIFY_FAILURE error to the EVM: EVM Id + Voter Id + VERIFY_FAILURE + ValidatorSignature( VERIFY_FAILURE + Blind(Encrypted(Ballot . EN)) ) If the Validator can't find the Voter Id, it sends an INVALID_VOTERID_FAILURE error to the EVM: EVM Id + Voter Id + INVALID_VOTERID_FAILURE + ValidatorSignature( INVALID_VOTERID_FAILURE + Blind(Encrypted(Ballot . EN)) ) As described earlier, if the Voter has already casted a vote, the Validator sends a proof of the vote, which contains: REPEAT_VOTE_FAILURE + Proof Where Proof is: EVM Id + Voter Id + Request_Timestamp + PreviousBlind(Encrypted(Ballot . EN)) + VoterSignature(PreviousBlind(Encrypted(Ballot . EN))) + VoterSignature(EN) Once the EVM has received responses from all Validators, it informs the voter that their vote was casted. If all Validators sent a positive response the EVM prints out the message "Vote successfully casted" (immediately following the previously printed Voter Id), and instructs the voter to take the printed receipt. If any of the Validators return a failure, the EVM prints out all Validator responses, including the steps for unblinding and decrypting the original vote. A little later I will demonstrate how this receipt can be used to detect various types of tampering and attacks on the system. For now, we will assume validation was successful. For a successful validation, the EVM removes the blind and is left with ``n' validated encrypted ballots: Validator_1_Signature(Encrypted(Ballot . EN))) .. Validator_n_Signature(Encrypted(Ballot . EN))) + Encrypted(Ballot . EN) This data encapsulates a secret vote by a voter whose eligibility has been attested to by all competing Validators, none of whom know the way in which the vote was cast. Additionally, any independent party can now confirm the integrity of the vote by checking the Validator signatures. The EVM places the signatures, the ballot and the secret key used to encrypted the Ballot on a "Tally Queue". For votes that failed, the failure messages are placed on the Tally Queue instead. Tallying When the Election is over, several pieces of data are published over the Internet in a public forum that has properties of a Usenet group (ie. published information can't be retracted). First, the Validators publish their list of Voter Ids that casted a vote along with "proofs" of validation request, where the proof is exactly the same as one described above. This includes all the data on the two lists maintained by the Validators. Once Validators have published their lists, the proxy opens up the constraints on EVM communication, such that they can all talk to each other and read and write in the public forum. The proxy informs EVMs of this event and sends them a list of IP addresses all EVMs. The EVMs then participate in an Onion Routing protocol[12] to publish the encrypted ballots and Validator signatures on these ballots from their Tallying Queue. Once encrypted votes and Validator signatures are faithfully transmitted over to the public forum, EVMs enter a second round of Onion routing to publish the AES passwords to decrypt the votes. The Onion Routing protocol strips the origination information, so it becomes impossibly hard to corelate votes to EVMs, thereby making the publication anonymous. At this point, all data required to do a tally is available publically. It should be noted that almost everything that transpires during the election process, with the exception of the data that links the voters to their votes, is made public at the end of the election. This level of transparency is one of the greatest benefits of a well designed electronic voting system. In Athens, the tallying is done by the Election Authority, but anyone equiped with Tallying software can check the tally independently. Athens tally is straightforward. Ballots that have valid signatures from _all_ Validators are selected as countable votes. These are decrypted with the published AES secret keys, votes are separated from the Election Number, and counted to produce a final tally. Security of Athens To analyse the security of Athens, I will show how various common attacks are made trivially detectable by the Athens architecture. Denial of Vote Attacks The pre-election registration verification keeps the Registrar honest. If the registrar drops people from the Register, there's a high probability that the drop will be detected and the Registrar will be answerable in a court of law. Since competing parties are independently undertaking the verification, it is in everyones interest to keep the process honest. During the election, two different types of denial attacks are possible. The first attack is where one of the competitors know (based on the Voter Id, or region), the way in which the voter will cast a vote. Outspoken supporters, representatives and volunteers of a party are vulnerable to this attack. A competing Validator could try to deny them the vote by raising one of the three possible errors: INVALID_VOTERID_FAILURE, VERIFY_FAILURE or REPEAT_VOTE_FAILURE. To protect from the INVALID_VOTERID_FAILURE denial attack, a copy of the register is published widely prior to the commencement of the elections. A receipt generated by the EVM with a valid Voter Id and an INVALID_VOTERID_FAILURE notice is an easily established proof of Validators' corruption. VERIFY_FAILURE is also trivially established with help of the positive validation requests from competing Validators (also on the receipt), the public Register and the voter's Voting Card. The attack based on the third error, REPEAT_FAILURE is more interesting. What if a Validator refuses to Validate a vote by claiming that the Voter has already voted? In that case, the Validator must provide a proof of the previous Validation request. Since the proof contains a signature made on both the EM and the Blinded ballot by Voter's secret key, the Validator cannot provide such a proof with the knowledge of the key - which is unavailable to the Validator. This is why Athens requires Validators to keep a copy of all validation requests, and conducts the validation process in 2-steps, so the first validation request can't be used as a proof. Also, since the Election Number is encoded in the ballot, and a signed EN is part of the proof, validation requests from previous elections can't be cited as proofs. An incorrect proof is easily verifiable by the EVM as well as the voter and a court of law with help of the printed receipt. A different kind of denial of vote attack can be mounted by the EVMs. In this attack the EVMs withhold publication of validated votes. However, such withholding is easily discovered in Athens because the list of proofs published by the Validators indicate the number of casted and verified votes. Ballot Stuffing Attacks There are several ways in which an attacker can try to stuff ballots. The first method, that was discussed earlier, is by registering fake voters during the registration process. Since the Register is open to independent scrutiny by all competitors, the risks of adding fake voters is high and hence discouraged. Another ballot stuffing attack is to cast votes for absentees. This attack is very hard in Athens, since it requires the knowledge of absentees' secret keys. The third way to stuff the ballot is for an eligible voter to cast multiple votes. This is made impossible in Athens with help of Validation proofs. Even when the Validators of n-1 colluding parties (where n is the number of competing parties), validate multiple requests from Mallory (a colluding voter), the non-colluding party is able to present a proof of Mallory's first vote and deny all subsequent requests with impunity. The Tallying process requires an affirmation from _all_ Validators, so such votes are not counted. Vote Alteration Attacks The Athens protocol requires that EVMs act honestly on the behalf of the Voter. A corrupt EVM could easily display to the voter that it has casted a vote their choice, but actually cast the vote for another party. This attack would be impossible if the EVM was required to print out a receipt of every vote that included the blinded ballot, signed by Voter's secret key, the steps to unblind it and the secret AES key with which the actual vote was encrypted. The voter could then look up the encrypted ballot after it was published and ensure the vote was cast and counted correctly. Doing this, however, would leave the voter with a proof of vote that could lead to vote coercion or vote buying. It is not sufficient to blindly trust the EVM either. Code reviews, or open source development of the EVM software (while should be encouraged) do not guarantee that the code running on the deployed EVM is the one that was reviewed. To keep the EVMs honest, Athens implements a sub-protocol for EVM verification. All competing parties add a few thousand fake voters to their own copy of the Register, and generate corresponding voting cards. These voting cards are then used by designated verifiers (volunteers) to cast arbitrary votes (usually for the party that runs the Validator) to test the EVMs. The volunteers are normal, eligible voters with multiple voting cards - they first vote with their real card, and then pull out the fake ones to run a series of tests. When the designated verifier casts a vote with one of the faked card, the vote is verified correctly by the Verifying Validator (the one who has the fake keys on it copy of the Register), while other n-1 Validators decline validation with an INVALID_VOTERID_FAILURE. This causes the EVM to print out the entire transaction, down to the selection of the actual vote that the EVM tried to validate. If the EVM is systematically altering votes, the designated verifier ends up with a receipt showing a selection that was different from his actual selection. If the EVM attempts to cover up its deception by printing a receipt that says "Vote successfully casted", the designated verified immediately knows the EVM is lying, since the n-1 Validators would have failed the verification. If the EVM tries to back paddle and cast a correct vote after it receives the INVALID_VOTERID_FAILUREs, the duplicate vote attempt is detected by (at least) the Verifying Validator, who responds with a proof of the previous validation request. Unable to differentiate a normal voter from a designated verifier before sending a verification request, the EVM is forced to act honestly. Athens requires the physical constraint of using a proxy for all communications originating from the EVMs, to ensure EVMs have no out-of-bound, out-of-protocol communications with Validators and other parties. This provides a single, focused point of observation for the competing parties, and can be performed fairly easily with a protocol decoder. In sum, Athens uses cryptographic primitives to build an electronic voting system that ties in the processes of registration, voting, and tallying into a protocol that is secure, anonymous and truly transparent. Since all aspects of the protocol are verifiable the potential for fraud is greatly reduced. Even more importantly, open systems like Athens inspire confidence and promote participation in the election process - the very foundation of democracy. Partial Observability "Participation" brings us to the one of the topics that originally led to my interest in electronic voting. I know many intelligent and politically sensitive Indians who have never casted a vote in Indian democratic elections. I am one of them. My reason for electoral inaction is not apathy, but simple statistics. In a country of a billion people, my vote doesn't really count. To be more precise, if one party wins by 80% then my vote, in either direction, is not useful. However, if a party that I don't support happens to win by a small margin, my vote (and those of others like me) could have made all the difference. Of course, I have no way of knowing this till it is too late. I could pay attention to gallop and exit polls, but those can be quite wrong as demonstrated in the Indian general elections earlier this year. It is no surprise that the voter turnout in what is perceived to be a hotly contested election is higher than expected. A comprehensive IDEA survey[13] on voter turnout failed to find corelations between turnout and various factors they studied, but they found that "there does seem to be a clear link between voter turnout and the competitiveness of electoral politics in a political system. In the 542 elections where the largest party won less than half of the votes turnout was a full 10% higher than the 263 elections where a single party won over 50% of the popular vote." Publishing partial results is a tactical nightmare in paper based or electronic counter based elections. However, a system like Athens could enter the Tally phase several times during the election at no additional cost to provide an "intermediate tally". The frequency and timing of the intermidiate tallies could be function of the size of the electorate and number of uncounted votes - large enough to protect the anonymity of the voters and small enough to provide an updating sense of the final result. The intermediate tallies could be broadcastd on TV, Radio and the Internet (much like Stock tickers), and would functions as "get out the vote" campaigns, to encourage the statistically informed to go out and vote. This property of elections that I like to call "partial observability", could greatly boost participation and otherwise alter the dynamics of the election process. It is just one of the ways in which electronic voting could qualitative change the elections and democracy. Bibliography [1] Indian Election 2004, Facts and Figures http://www.indian-elections.com/facts-figures.html How Stuff Works, How many sheets of paper can be produced from a single tree? http://science.howstuffworks.com/question16.htm [2] T. Kohno, A. Stubblefield, A. Rubin, D. Wallach, Analysis of an Electronic Voting System, May 2004. http://avirubin.com/vote/analysis/index.html [3] Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Risk Assessment Report: Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting System and Processes, SAIC-6099-2003-261, 2 September 2003. http://www.dbm.maryland.gov/DBM%20Taxonomy/Tech- nology/Policies%20&%20Publications/State%20Voting%20- System%20Report/stateVotingSystemReport.html [4] Black Box Voting, Consumer Report Part 1: The Diebold GEMS central tabulator contains a stunning security hole, 26 August 2004 http://www.blackboxvoting.org/?q=node/view/78 [5] Paul O'Donnell, Why you are still voting on paper, WIRED, August 2004. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.08/start.html?pg=7 [6] VerifiedVoter.org [7] CRS Report for Congress, Election Reform and Electronic Voting Systems: Analysis of Security Issues. http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf [8] D. Chaum, Achieving Electronic Privacy http://ntrg.cs.tcd.ie/mepeirce/Project/Chaum/sciam.html [9] A. Fujioka, T. Okamoto, and K. Ohta, A Practical Secret Voting Scheme for Large Scale Elections. 1992. http://theory.csail.mit.edu/~rivest/voting/papers/- FujiokaOkamotoOhta-APracticalSecretVotingSchemeFor- LargeScaleElections.pdf [10] L. Cranor, R. Cytron, Sensus: A security conscious electronic polling system for the Internet. http://lorrie.cranor.org/pubs/hicss/ [11] D. Chaum, Secret Ballot Receipts and Transparent Integrity. http://www.vreceipt.com/article.pdf [12] R. Dingledine, N. Mathewson, P. Syverson, Tor: The Second- Generation Onion Router. http://www.freehaven.net/tor/cvs/doc/design-paper/tor-design.html [13] IDEA, Voter Turnout: A Global Survey http://www.idea.int/voter_turnout/voter_turnout.html From iang at systemics.com Sun Nov 7 06:11:56 2004 From: iang at systemics.com (Ian Grigg) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 09:11:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: L/Cs, e-gold and regulated banking In-Reply-To: <013a01c4c4bf$69dff8a0$0200a8c0@em.noip.com> References: <20041105181248.7F09757E2A@finney.org> <1576.82.70.142.134.1099797702.squirrel@82.70.142.134> <013a01c4c4bf$69dff8a0$0200a8c0@em.noip.com> Message-ID: <1724.82.70.142.134.1099836716.squirrel@82.70.142.134> (Guys, this has drifted out of crypto into finance, so I have a feeling that it will disappear of the crypto list. But the topics that are raised are interesting and important enough to carry on, I think.) >> > [Hal:] >> > Interesting. In the e-gold case, both parties have the same bank, >> > e-gold ltd. The corresponding protocol would be for the buyer to >> > instruct e-gold to set aside some money which would go to the >> > seller once the seller supplied a certain receipt. That receipt >> > would be an email return receipt showing that the seller had sent >> > the buyer the content with hash so-and-so, using a cryptographic >> > email return-receipt protocol. >> [iang:] >> This is to mix up banking and payment systems. Enzo's >> description shows banks doing banking - lending money >> on paper that eventually pays a rate of return. In >> contrast, in the DGC or digital gold currency world, >> the issuers of gold like e-gold are payment systems and >> not banks. The distinction is that a payment system >> does not issue credit. > [enzo:] > Actually, seeing issuance and acceptance of L/C's only as a money-lending > activity is not 100% accurate. "Letter of credit" is a misnomer: an L/C > _may_ be used by the seller to obtain credit, but if the documents are > "sent for collection" rather than "negotiated", the payment to the seller > is delayed until the opening bank will have debited the buyer's account > and remitted the due amount to the negotiating bank. To be precise: when > the documents are submitted to the negotiating bank by the seller, the > latter also draws under the terms of the L/C a "bill of exchange" to be > accepted by the buyer; that instrument, just like any draft, may be either > sent for collection or negotiated immediately, subject, of course, to > final settlement. Also, depending on the agreements between the seller and > his bank, the received L/C may be considered as collateral to get further > allocation of credit, e.g. to open a "back-to-back L/C" to a seller of raw > materials. > > However, if the documents and the draft are sent for collection, and no > other extension of credit are obtained by the buyer, the only advantage of > an L/C for the seller is the certainty of being paid by _his_ > (negotiating) bank, which he trusts not to collude with the buyer to claim > fictitious discrepancies between the actual documents submitted and what > the L/C was requesting. (And even in case such discrepancies will turn out > to be real, the opening bank will not surrender the Bill of Lading, and > therefore the cargo, to the buyer until the latter will have accepted all > the discrepancies: so in the worst case the cargo will remain under the > seller's control, to be shipped back and/or sold to some other buyer. > If it acted differently, the opening bank would go against the standard > practice defined in the UCP ICC 500 > (http://internet.ggu.edu/~emilian/PUBL500.htm) and its reputation would be > badly damaged). So, the L/C mechanism, independently from allocation of > credit, _does_ provide a way out of the dilemma "which one should come > first, payment or delivery?"; and this is achieved by leveraging on the > reputation of parties separately trusted by the endpoints of the > transaction. An excellent description; I was unaware that the system could be used in a non-credit fashion. Thanks for correcting me. > Generally speaking, it is debatable whether "doing banking" only means > "accepting deposits and providing credit" or also "handling payments for a > fee": There are many definitions of "banking" and unfortunately they are different enough that one will make mistakes routinely. Here are the most useful three that I know of: 1. borrowing from the public as deposits and lending those deposits to the public. This is the favoured definition for economists, because it concentrates on the specialness that is banking, which is the foundation for its special regulatory structure. 2. Banking is what banks do, and banks do banking. This is the favoured definition of banks, and often times, regulators, because it gives them a free hand to exploit their special franchise / subsidy. It was codified in law in many countries as just this, but I believe it is out of favour to write it down these days. However, the Fed and other US regulators have from time to time resorted to this definition, when convenient. 3. Banking is what the regulator says is banking. This is the favoured definition of regulators, and sometimes of banks. It means that there is little or no argument or discussion in protecting the flock. This is the much more prevalent in smaller countries, where the notion of "sending in the lawyers" is simply too expensive. 4. There is a popular definition that says something like, if it is to do with money it is banking. That's not a very useful one, but it's prevalent enough to need to be aware of it. > ... surely banks routinely do both, although they do not usually enjoy a > _regulatory franchise_ on payments because failures in that field are not > usually argued to be capable of snowballing into systemic failures. > (Austrian economists argue that that's also the case with provision of > credit, but it's a much more controversial issue). In the US, as we know, > Greenspan's FED decided several years ago against heavy regulation of the > payments business, and most industrialized countries chose to follow suit. Right! (Although, I'd suggest that the "payment systems regulatory" question is polarised between the Fed and the German model. In the German model, payment systems are part of banking, and are subject to heavy regulation. I've not heard of the Germans and their followers accepting the Fed model. This debate is played out in the EU over and over again, and there it can be loosely characterised as the Germans + supporters versus the Brits plus supporters.) >> So, in the e-gold scenario, there would need to be >> similar third parties independent of the payment system >> to provide the credit moving in the reverse direction to >> the goods. In the end it would be much like Enzo's >> example, with a third party with the seller, a third >> party with the buyer, and one or two third parties who >> are dealing the physical goods. There have been some >> thoughts in the direction of credit creation in the >> gold community, but nothing of any sustainability has >> occurred as yet. > > That would probably end up attracting unwelcome attention by the > regulators. Well, one could speculate on that and many other things. Perhaps an anecdote would illustrate that better than I can in more speculation: in the very early days, e-gold did go to the Fed and ask them if they considered e-gold to be ... within interest. The Fed said, "gold is not money and therefore it is not of interest." This would have been back in 97 or so. Now, that's what the Fed said then. Obviously they are using definition #3 above. And, just as obviously, things can change... > Besides, wouldn't that require some sort of fractional > banking, resulting in a money supply multiple of the monetary base by an > unstable multiplier, and ultimately bringing back the disadvantages of > fiat currencies? If the separate party were to hold and create credit based on contracts of deposit, using e-gold as the money and as the accounts system, this would be doing banking according to definition #1 above. However, note that it would have both the advantages of both a hard money - 100% reserved digital gold - and the advantages of fractional reserve. The bank could only lend out what it had attracted in deposits, which would result in a stable multiplier. The trick is to separate the payment system from the bank! The easiest way to do this is to ban payment systems from being near or related to credit systems, which is what we espouse in our unregulated finance systems governance models. (This is why e-gold is a payment system in Nevis, and G&SR is a seller of e-gold for dollars in Florida. On paper at least, G&SR can go bankrupt and e-gold carries on.) The offerers of credit and loans were all third parties that more or less had nothing to do with e-gold. Such separation, in theory, allows the creation of a stable credit expansion system which is only limited by the efficiency of the players. iang From rah at shipwright.com Sun Nov 7 06:36:32 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 09:36:32 -0500 Subject: Plane passengers shocked by their x-ray scans Message-ID: The Times of London CLICK HERE TO PRINTCLOSE WINDOW? November 07, 2004 Plane passengers shocked by their x-ray scans Dipesh Gadher,Transport Correspondent AN X-RAY machine that sees through air passengers' clothes has been deployed by security staff at London's Heathrow airport for the first time. The device at Terminal 4 produces a "naked" image of passengers by bouncing X-rays off their skin, enabling staff instantly to spot any hidden weapons or explosives. But the graphic nature of the black and white images it generates - including revealing outlines of men and women - has raised concerns about privacy both among travellers and aviation authorities. In America, transport officials are refusing to deploy the device until it can be further refined to "mask" passengers' modesty. The Terminal 4 trial - being conducted jointly by the British Airports Authority and the Department for Transport - became fully operational last month and is intended to run until the end of the year. Its deployment has not been reported until now since new security measures at airports are not normally publicised. If the new body scanner is able to cope with large volumes of passengers, improves detection rates and, crucially, receives public acceptance, it is likely to be rolled out across all Britain's airports. At Heathrow, passengers are picked to go through the body scanner on a random and voluntary basis. Those who refuse are subjected to an automatic hand search. The scanner, which resembles a tall, grey filing cabinet, operates in a curtained area and passengers are asked to stand in front of it, adopting several poses, for their "naked" image to be registered. Once checked, the images are immediately erased. Security officials claim it is a far more effective way of countering potential terrorists because it detects the outline of any solid object - such as plastic explosives or ceramic knives - which conventional metal detectors would miss. Managers at Heathrow also say the new technology does away with the need to subject passengers to potentially intrusive hand searches. However, travellers who have been screened - and have asked to see the images - have been surprised by their clarity. "I was quite shocked by what I saw," said Gary Cook, 40, a graphic designer from Shaftesbury, Dorset. "I felt a bit embarrassed looking at the image. A female passenger, who did not want to be named, said: "It was really horrible. It doesn't leave much to the imagination because you're virtually naked, but I guess it's less intrusive than being hand searched." In a similar trial at Orlando international airport in Florida in 2002, passengers were shown a dummy image before going through, and at least a quarter of them refused to volunteer. In America last year, Susan Hallowell, director of the US Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) security laboratory, showed off her own x-ray image to demonstrate the technology to reporters. "It basically makes you look fat and naked, but you see all this stuff," said Hallowell, who had deliberately hidden a gun and a bomb under her clothes. The TSA has decided not to deploy the device at American airports until manufacturers can develop an electronic means of masking sensitive body parts. Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard Terms and Conditions . Please read our Privacy Policy . To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from The Times, visit the Syndication website . -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jamesd at echeque.com Sun Nov 7 11:19:44 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 11:19:44 -0800 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: <20041106160732.W61334@ubzr.zsa.bet> References: <20041106153941.GX1457@leitl.org> <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> <20041106160732.W61334@ubzr.zsa.bet> Message-ID: <418E7550.7050006@echeque.com> -- J.A. Terranson wrote: > The fact is that those who did not vote effectively voted for Shrub. > You are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. > Inaction is not good enough. Voting is not a solution. Voting only encourages them. If you vote for a candidate, and he wins, he will then proceed to commit various crimes, and you, by voting, have given him a "mandate" for those crimes. Further, suppose you think, as I think, that candidate A is a lesser evil than candidate B, but the difference is not much. If you vote for the lesser evil, you will start to rationalize and excuse all the crimes he commits, identifying with him, and his actions. Nor is Kerry a solution. I cannot understand why you Bush haters are so excited about this election when on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Kerry promised to continue all Bush's policies only more effectually. You vote for Kerry because you think he is a liar? --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG EDbRclDc5acD10EGJi0ScHZfE2IslIbsawTQvj54 4jjneZ53XniQe2NYlNlFO5PGLTN5vTyDLI5okTjKv From rah at shipwright.com Sun Nov 7 10:38:15 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 13:38:15 -0500 Subject: Tom Wolfe: 'Talk to someone in Cincinnati? Are you crazy?' Message-ID: My mother's family's name is Sanders. It's Scots-Irish. Apparently, I like to have my "rock fights" on the net... :-). Cheers, RAH ------- The Times of London November 07, 2004 Focus: US Election Special 'Talk to someone in Cincinnati? Are you crazy?'. . . and so the Democrats blew it Tom Wolfe on the elite that got lost in middle America Over the past few days I've talked to lots of journalists and literary types in New York. I've grown used to the sound of crushed, hushed voices on the end of the phone. The weight of George Bush's victory seems almost too much. But what did they expect, I ask myself. They don't like the war and the way the war is going, they don't like Bush and they don't like what this election says about America. But where's their sense of reality? The liberal elite showed it was way out of touch even before the election. I was at a dinner party in New York and when everyone was wondering what to do about Bush I suggested they might do like me and vote for him. There was silence around the table, as if I'd said "by the way, I haven't mentioned this before but I'm a child molester". Now, like Chicken Licken after an acorn fell on his head, they think the sky is falling. I have to laugh. It reminds me of Pauline Kael, the film critic, who said, "I don't know how Reagan won - I don't know a soul who voted for him." That was a classic and reflects the reaction of New York intellectuals now. Note my definition of "intellectual" here is what you often find in this city: not people of intellectual attainment but more like car salesmen, who take in shipments of ideas and sell them on. I think the results in Ohio, the key state this time, tell us everything we need to know. Overall, the picture of Republican red and Democratic blue across the country remained almost unchanged since last time. The millions of dollars spent and miles travelled on the Bush and Kerry campaigns made no difference at all. But look at Ohio and the different voting patterns in Cleveland and Cincinnati. Cleveland, in the north of the state, is cosmopolitan, what we would think of as an "eastern" city, and Kerry won by two votes to one. Cincinnati, in the southeast corner of Ohio, is a long way away both geographically and culturally. It's Midwestern and that automatically means "hicksville" to New York intellectuals. There Bush won by a margin of 150,000 votes and it was southern Ohio as a whole that sent him back to the White House. The truth is that my pals, my fellow journos and literary types, would feel more comfortable going to Baghdad than to Cincinnati. Most couldn't tell you what state Cincinnati is in and going there would be like being assigned to a tumbleweed county in Mexico. They can talk to sheikhs in Lebanon and esoteric radical groups in Uzbekistan, but talk to someone in Cincinnati . . . are you crazy? They have no concept of what America is made of and even now they won't see that. So who are the people who voted for Bush? I think the most cogent person on this is James Webb, the most decorated marine to come out of Vietnam. Like John Kerry he won the Silver Star, but also the Navy Cross, the equivalent of our highest honour, the Congressional Medal. He served briefly under Reagan as secretary for the navy, but he has since become a writer. His latest book, Born Fighting, is the most important piece of ethnography in this country for a long time. It's about that huge but invisible group, the Scots-Irish. They're all over the Appalachian mountains and places like southern Ohio and Tennessee. Their theme song is country music and when people talk about rednecks, this is the group they're talking about: this is the group that voted for Bush. Though they've had successes, the Scots-Irish generally haven't done well economically. They're individualistic, they're stubborn and they value their way of life more then their financial situation. If a politician comes out for gun control they take it personally. It's not about guns, really: if you're against the National Rifle Association you're against them as a people. They take Protestantism seriously. It tickles me when people talk about "the Christian right". These people aren't right wing, they're just religious. If you're religious, of course, you're against gay marriage and abortion. You're against a lot of things that have become part of the intellectual liberal liturgy. Everyone who joins the military here thinks, "Where did all these Southerners come from?" These people love to fight. During the French and Indian wars, before there was a United States, recruiters would turn up in the Carolinas and in the Appalachians and say, "Anyone want to go and fight Indians?" There was a bunch of boys who were always up for it and they haven't lost that love of battle. My family wasn't Scots-Irish but my father was from the Shenendoah Valley, in the Blue Ridge mountains in western Virginia, so I know the kind of folks Webb is talking about. They do like fighting: many's the time I was visiting there and I'd get taken down to town to watch the rock fights on a Saturday night. All the men would hit the bar, drink beer - the only drink you could buy out there - come out of the saloon, pick up rocks, throw them at each other and then go home. Bush, despite his wealthy and refined lineage, in terms of family and where he went to school, manages to come across to people like that as one of them. He walks like them, he talks like them, he likes cattle and he says he likes stock car racing, the most popular sport in the United States, not that you'd know it from reading the New York papers - they don't cover it. There's an annual race in a little place, Bristol Tennessee, a place full of Scots-Irish, that draws 165,000 people every year, 55,000 more than go to the biggest football game. Bush reflects this America - the real America - and that is maybe what the liberal elite and his critics abroad can't stomach. He honestly seems to believe in God, whereas Kerry says, "I'm a Roman Catholic so I must believe in God." It's as if he turns to James Carville (the Democratic strategist) and says, "Don't I?" It obviously doesn't play a part in his life. The values of middle America don't play well in New York. Among American writers, with few exceptions, you don't say anything patriotic and you don't say anything generally good about the country. I must finish now because I need to get to Kennedy airport to wave goodbye to all those writers and journalists who've told me they can't take another four years of Bush. Triumphalism is not my style but I can't help an "I told you so" smile. Oh, by the way, most of them are leaving for London. Heaven help you when they get there. Tom Wolfe was talking to Margarette Driscoll -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From measl at mfn.org Sun Nov 7 13:54:47 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 15:54:47 -0600 (CST) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: <418E7550.7050006@echeque.com> References: <20041106153941.GX1457@leitl.org> <20041106182519.GA10341@arion.soze.net> <20041106160732.W61334@ubzr.zsa.bet> <418E7550.7050006@echeque.com> Message-ID: <20041107154950.M67091@ubzr.zsa.bet> On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, James A. Donald wrote: > J.A. Terranson wrote: > > The fact is that those who did not vote effectively voted for Shrub. > > You are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. > > Inaction is not good enough. > > Voting is not a solution. > > Voting only encourages them. If you vote for a candidate, and he > wins, he will then proceed to commit various crimes, and you, by > voting, have given him a "mandate" for those crimes. This is the position I maintained, word for word, since Carter. However, where as you may have "mandated" the crimes you voted for, you have also "mandated" the crimes you failed to prevent, since you KNEW those crimes would be committed. > Further, suppose you think, as I think, that candidate A is a lesser > evil than candidate B, but the difference is not much. If you vote for > the lesser evil, you will start to rationalize and excuse all the > crimes he commits, identifying with him, and his actions. Bullshit. That may be *you*, but that does not cover all of us. > Nor is Kerry a solution. Agreed. > I cannot understand why you Bush haters are so excited about this > election when on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Kerry promised to > continue all Bush's policies only more effectually. This was the reason the vote was (a) so close amongst voters, and (b) likely decided for Shrub. > You vote for Kerry because you think he is a liar? No. I voted for Kerry because unlike George, he has at least two brain cells - so there's a *chance* (remote, I grant you), that he can be made to see reason. Bush however, (a) has no brain whatsoever, (b) *enjoys* fucking things up and praying that his good buddy Jesus will fix his fuckups, and (c) seeing people needlessly suffer. This is why people are so upset that he was finally elected: nobody wants a sadist in a position where he can deliberately and with impunity hurt whoever he turns his sick little gaze to. > --digsig > James A. Donald -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From jya at pipeline.com Sun Nov 7 15:59:58 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 15:59:58 -0800 Subject: Tom Wolfe: 'Talk to someone in Cincinnati? Are you crazy?' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: What is characteristic of all these Bush-winning stories is that the writers uniformly seem surprised it happened. More surpised than the Democrats. Their post-election commentary conveys that it is hard to believe by most Americans that Bush seems to have won, if you read the winners and losers accounts carefully. Wolfe's piece shows the common feature of dumbfoundness, as if not quite clear how it happened, despite all the cliches being bruited, especially the one about the Bush campaign reaching all those millions who liked him and what he is doing. There a nervousness in the winners' stories, an unsureness that there was a legitimate win, that something might be discovered to invalidate it, so its best to push the good news before it evaporates or is transformed into bad news so closely associated with the Bush administration. The Bush-win proponents sound like they are whistling in the dark. And their whistling keeps getting louder and more persistent and more hysterical, if you bother to read the anxious urgings Herr Dr. Heidegger is posting here. Your Nazi-Commie-Faith-Based Code-Whistler From rah at shipwright.com Sun Nov 7 13:07:43 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 16:07:43 -0500 Subject: Faith in democracy, not government Message-ID: The San Francisco Chronicle Election Fallout Faith in democracy, not government - Victor Davis Hanson Sunday, November 7, 2004 Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were the only two Democrats to be elected president since 1976. Both were Southerners. Apparently, the only assurance that the electorate has had that a Democrat was serious about national security or social sobriety was his drawl. More disturbing still for liberal Democrats is that George W. Bush is the first Republican Southerner ever elected to the presidency, another indicator that a majority of the citizenry no longer finds conservatism and Texas such a scary mix. The fate of third-party candidates was also instructive in the election. Left-wing alternatives like Ralph Nader go nowhere. Conservative populists, on the other hand, can capture 10 percent or more of the electorate, as Ross Perot did in 1992 and almost again in 1996. Indeed, Perot's initial run probably accounts for Clinton's first election, and helped his second as well. In short, Kerry's 3.5 million shortfall in the popular vote underestimates the degree to which the country has drifted to the right. Over a decade ago, it took a third-party candidate, political consultant Dick Morris' savvy triangulation and Bill Clinton's masterful political skills to stave off the complete loss of Democratic legislative, executive and judicial power of the sort that we witnessed last week. Something else is going on in the country that has been little remarked upon. It is not just that an endorsement of a Michael Moore does not translate into votes or that Rathergate loses viewers for CBS. It has become perhaps far worse: A Hollywood soiree with a foul-mouthed Whoopee Goldberg or a Tim Robbins rant can turn toxic for liberal candidates. We are nearly reaching the point where approval from the New York Times or a CBS puff-piece hurts a candidate or cause, as do the billions in contributions from a George Soros. Television commentators Walter Cronkite, Bill Moyers, Andy Rooney or Ted Koppel have morphed from their once sober and judicious personas into highly partisan figures that now carry political weight among most Americans only to the degree that they harm any cause or candidate with whom they are associated. Readers do not just disagree with spirited columns by a Molly Ivins, Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd, but rather are turned off when they revert to hysterics and condescension. To the degree that the messages, proposals or endorsements of a delinquent like Ben Affleck, an incoherent Bruce Springsteen, or a reprobate like Eminem were comprehensible, John Kerry should have run from them all. This election also involved perceived hypocrisy. No one in Bakersfield or Fresno thinks that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld espouses views at odds with the privileged lives that they live; they, of course, unabashedly celebrate and benefit from free enterprise and corporate capitalism. In contrast, Teresa Heinz Kerry and John Kerry, George Soros or John Edwards even more so enjoy the fruits of the very system they at times seem to question. Thus, concern for two Americas is not discernable in John Edwards' multimillion-dollar legal fees, the Kerry jet, or Soros Inc.'s global financial speculation. It is easy for a Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore to trash Halliburton, but Red America wonders about the source of university contracts that subsidize privileged professors' sermons or why corporate recording, cinema and advertising conglomerates that enrich celebrities are exempt from Hollywood's Pavlovian censure of big business. That the man who nearly destroyed the small depositors of Great Britain also fueled MoveOn.org seemed to say it all. Where does this leave us? After landmark legislation of the last 40 years to ensure equality of opportunity, the public has reached its limit in using government to press on to enforce an equality of result. In terms of national security, the Republicans, more so than the Democrats after the Cold War -- in Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq -- oddly are now the party of democratic change, while liberals are more likely to shrug about the disturbing status quo abroad. Conservatives have also made the argument that poverty is evolving into a different phenomenon from what it was decades ago when outhouses, cold showers and no breakfasts were commonplace and we were all not awash in cheap Chinese-imported sneakers, cell phones and televisions. Like it or not, the public believes that choices resulting in breaking of the law, drug use, illegitimate births, illiteracy and victimhood can induce poverty as much as exploitation, racism or sexism can. After trillions of dollars of entitlement programs, most voters are unsure that the answers lie with bureaucrats and social programs, especially when the elite architects of such polices rarely experience firsthand the often unintended, but catastrophic results of their own well-meant engineering. So we all know the cure for the Democratic Party: More moderate, populist candidates who don't talk down to voters or live one life and profess another; more explicit faith in American democracy and values; and a little more humility in accepting the tragic limitations of human nature. Yet for many,that medicine of reappraisal will be far worse than the disease of chronic defeat. Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From measl at mfn.org Sun Nov 7 14:09:03 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 16:09:03 -0600 (CST) Subject: Blackbox: Elections fraud in 2004 Message-ID: <20041107160555.Q67091@ubzr.zsa.bet> http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ BREAKING -- SUNDAY Nov. 7 2004: Freedom of Information requests at http://www.blackboxvoting.org have unearthed two Ciber certification reports indicating that security and tamperability was NOT TESTED and that several state elections directors, a secretary of state, and computer consultant Dr. Britain Williams signed off on the report anyway, certifying it. Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history. ----------------------------------------------- SUNDAY Nov. 7 2004: We.re awaiting independent analysis on some pretty crooked-looking elections. In the mean time, here.s something to chew on. Your local elections officials trusted a group called NASED -- the National Association of State Election Directors -- to certify that your voting system is safe. This trust was breached. NASED certified the systems based on the recommendation of an .Independent Testing Authority. (ITA). What no one told local officials was that the ITA did not test for security (and NASED didn.t seem to mind). The ITA reports are considered so secret that even the California Secretary of State.s office had trouble getting its hands on one. The ITA refused to answer any questions about what it does. Imagine our surprise when, due to Freedom of Information requests, a couple of them showed up in our mailbox. The most important test on the ITA report is called the .penetration analysis.. This test is supposed to tell us whether anyone can break into the system to tamper with the votes. .Not applicable,. wrote Shawn Southworth, of Ciber Labs, the ITA that tested the Diebold GEMS central tabulator software. .Did not test.. Shawn Southworth .tested. whether every candidate on the ballot has a name. But we were shocked to find out that, when asked the most important question -- about vulnerable entry points -- Southworth.s report says .not reviewed.. Ciber .tested.whether the manual gives a description of the voting system. But when asked to identify methods of attack (which we think the American voter would consider pretty important), the top-secret report says .not applicable.. Ciber .tested. whether ballots comply with local regulations, but when Bev Harris asked Shawn Southworth what he thinks about Diebold tabulators accepting large numbers of .minus. votes, he said he didn.t mention that in his report because .the vendors don.t like him to put anything negative. in his report. After all, he said, he is paid by the vendors. Shawn Southworth didn.t do the penetration analysis, but check out what he wrote: .Ciber recommends to the NASED committee that GEMS software version 1.18.15 be certified and assigned NASED certification number N03060011815.. Was this just a one-time oversight? Nope. It appears to be more like a habit. Here is the same Ciber certification section for VoteHere; as you can see, the critical security test, the .penetration analysis. was again marked .not applicable. and was not done. Maybe another ITA did the penetration analysis? Apparently not. We discovered an even more bizarre Wyle Laboratories report. In it, the lab admits the Sequoia voting system has problems, but says that since they were not corrected earlier, Sequoia could continue with the same flaws. At one point the Wyle report omits its testing altogether, hoping the vendor will do the test. Computer Guys: Be your own ITA certifier. Here is a copy of the full Ciber report (part 1, 2, 3, 4) on GEMS 1.18.15. Here is a zip file download for the GEMS 1.18.15 program. Here is a real live Diebold vote database. Compare your findings against the official testing lab and see if you agree with what Ciber says. E-mail us your findings. TIPS: The password for the vote database is .password. and you should place it in the .LocalDB. directory in the GEMS folder, which you.ll find in .program files.. Who the heck is NASED? They are the people who certified this stuff. You.ve gotta ask yourself: Are they nuts? Some of them are computer experts. Well, it seems that several of these people suddenly want to retire, and the whole NASED voting systems board is becoming somewhat defunct, but these are the people responsible for today's shoddy voting systems. If the security of the U.S. electoral system depends on you to certify a voting system, and you get a report that plainly states that security was .not tested. and .not applicable. -- what would you do? Perhaps we should ask them. Go ahead. Let's hold them accountable for the election we just had. (Please, e-mail us their answers) They don't make it very easy to get their e-mail and fax information; when you find it, let us know and we'll post it here. NASED VOTING SYSTEMS/ITA ACCREDITATION BOARD Thomas R. Wilkey, Executive Director, New York State Board of Elections David Elliott, (former) Asst. Director of Elections, Washington State James Hendrix, Executive Director, State Election Commission, South Carolina Denise Lamb, Director, State Bureau of Elections, New Mexico Sandy Steinbach, Director of Elections, Iowa Donetta Davidson, Secretary of State, Colorado Connie Schmidt, Commissioner, Johnson County Election Commission, Kansas (the late) Robert Naegele, President Granite Creek Technology, Pacific Grove, California Brit Williams, Professor, CSIS Dept, Kennesaw State College, Georgia Paul Craft, Computer Audit Analyst, Florida State Division of Elections Florida Steve Freeman, Software Consultant, League City, Texas Jay W. Nispel, Senior Principal Engineer, Computer Sciences Corporation Annapolis Junction, Maryland Yvonne Smith (Member Emeritus), Former Assistant to the Executive Director Illinois State Board of Elections, Illinois Penelope Bonsall, Director, Office of Election Administration, Federal Election Commission, Washington, D.C. Committee Secretariat: The Election Center, R. Doug Lewis, Executive Director Houston, Texas, Tele: 281-293-0101 # # # # # THURSDAY Nov. 4 2004: If you are concerned about what happened Tuesday, Nov. 2, you have found a home with our organization. Help America Audit. Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history. We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records. We need citizen volunteers for a number of specific actions. We need computer security professionals willing to GO PUBLIC with formal opinions on the evidence we provide, whether or not it involves DMCA complications. We need funds to pay for copies of the evidence. TUESDAY Nov 2 2004: BREAKING NEWS: New information indicates that hackers may have targeted the central computers that are counting our votes. Freedom of Information requests are not free. We need to raise $50,000 as quickly as possible to pay for records and the fees some states charge for them. We launched one major FOIA action last night, and have two more on the way, pell-mell. Now is the time. If you can't donate funds, please donate time. E-mail to join the Cleanup Crew. Important: Watch this 30-minute film clip Voting without auditing. (Are we insane?) SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Nov 3 2004 -- Did the voting machines trump exit polls? There.s a way to find out. Black Box Voting (.ORG) is conducting the largest Freedom of Information action in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit. America: We have permission to say No to unaudited voting. It is our right. Among the first requests sent to counties (with all kinds of voting systems -- optical scan, touch-screen, and punch card) is a formal records request for internal audit logs, polling place results slips, modem transmission logs, and computer trouble slips. An earlier FOIA is more sensitive, and has not been disclosed here. We will notify you as soon as we can go public with it. Such a request filed in King County, Washington on Sept. 15, following the primary election six weeks ago, uncovered an internal audit log containing a three-hour deletion on election night; .trouble slips. revealing suspicious modem activity; and profound problems with security, including accidental disclosure of critically sensitive remote access information to poll workers, office personnel, and even, in a shocking blunder, to Black Box Voting activists. Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer protection group for elections. You may view the first volley of public records requests here: Freedom of Information requests here Responses from public officials will be posted in the forum, is organized by state and county, so that any news organization or citizens group has access to the information. Black Box Voting will assist in analysis, by providing expertise in evaluating the records. Watch for the records online; Black Box Voting will be posting the results as they come in. And by the way, these are not free. The more donations we get, the more FOIAs we are empowered to do. Time's a'wasting. We look forward to seeing you participate in this process. Join us in evaluating the previously undisclosed inside information about how our voting system works. Play a part in reclaiming transparency. It.s the only way. # # # # # Public Records Request - November 2, 2004 From: Black Box Voting To: Elections division Pursuant to public records law and the spirit of fair, trustworthy, transparent elections, we request the following documents. We are requesting these as a nonprofit, noncommercial group acting in the capacity of a news and consumer interest organization, and ask that if possible, the fees be waived for this request. If this is not possible, please let us know which records will be provided and the cost. Please provide records in electronic form, by e-mail, if possible - crew at blackboxvoting.org. We realize you are very, very busy with the elections canvass. To the extent possible, we do ask that you expedite this request, since we are conducting consumer audits and time is of the essence. We request the following records. Item 1. All notes, emails, memos, and other communications pertaining to any and all problems experienced with the voting system, ballots, voter registration, or any component of your elections process, beginning October 12, through November 3, 2004. Item 2. Copies of the results slips from all polling places for the Nov. 2, 2004 election. If you have more than one copy, we would like the copy that is signed by your poll workers and/or election judges. Item 3: The internal audit log for each of your Unity, GEMS, WinEds, Hart Intercivic or other central tabulating machine. Because different manufacturers call this program by different names, for purposes of clarification we mean the programs that tally the composite of votes from all locations. Item 4: If you are in the special category of having Diebold equipment, or the VTS or GEMS tabulator, we request the following additional audit logs: a. The transmission logs for all votes, whether sent by modem or uploaded directly. You will find these logs in the GEMS menu under .Accuvote OS Server. and/or .Accuvote TS Server. b. The .audit log. referred to in Item 3 for Diebold is found in the GEMS menu and is called .Audit Log. c. All .Poster logs.. These can be found in the GEMS menu under .poster. and also in the GEMS directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, as a text file. Simply print this out and provide it. d. Also in the Data file directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, please provide any and all logs titled .CCLog,. .PosterLog., and Pserver Log, and any logs found within the .Download,. .Log,. .Poster. or .Results. directories. e. We are also requesting the Election Night Statement of Votes Cast, as of the time you stopped uploading polling place memory cards for Nov. 2, 2004 election. Item 5: We are requesting every iteration of every interim results report, from the time the polls close until 5 p.m. November 3. Item 6: If you are in the special category of counties who have modems attached, whether or not they were used and whether or not they were turned on, we are requesting the following: a. internal logs showing transmission times from each voting machine used in a polling place b. The Windows Event Viewer log. You will find this in administrative tools, Event Viewer, and within that, print a copy of each log beginning October 12, 2004 through Nov. 3, 2004. Item 7: All e-mails, letters, notes, and other correspondence between any employee of your elections division and any other person, pertaining to your voting system, any anomalies or problems with any component of the voting system, any written communications with vendors for any component of your voting system, and any records pertaining to upgrades, improvements, performance enhancement or any other changes to your voting system, between Oct. 12, 2004 and Nov. 3, 2004. Item 8: So that we may efficiently clarify any questions pertaining to your specific county, please provide letterhead for the most recent non-confidential correspondence between your office and your county counsel, or, in lieu of this, just e-mail us the contact information for your county counsel. Because time is of the essence, if you cannot provide all items, please provide them in increments as soon as you have them, and please notify us by telephone (206-335-7747) or email (Bevharrismail at aol.com) as soon as you have any portion of the above public records request available for review. Thank you very much, and here.s hoping for a smooth and simple canvass which works out perfectly for you. We very, very much appreciate your help with this, and we do realize how stressful this election has been. If you need a local address, please let me know, and we will provide a local member for this public records request. In the interest of keeping your life simple, we thought it best to coordinate all records through one entity so that you don.t get multiple local requests. # # # # # We now have evidence that certainly looks like altering a computerized voting system during a real election, and it happened just six weeks ago. MONDAY Nov 1 2004: New information indicates that hackers may be targeting the central computers counting our votes tomorrow. All county elections officials who use modems to transfer votes from polling places to the central vote-counting server should disconnect the modems now. There is no down side to removing the modems. Simply drive the vote cartridges from each polling place in to the central vote-counting location by car, instead of transmitting by modem. .Turning off. the modems may not be sufficient. Disconnect the central vote counting server from all modems, INCLUDING PHONE LINES, not just Internet. In a very large county, this will add at most one hour to the vote-counting time, while offering significant protection from outside intrusion. It appears that such an attack may already have taken place, in a primary election 6 weeks ago in King County, Washington -- a large jurisdiction with over one million registered voters. Documents, including internal audit logs for the central vote-counting computer, along with modem .trouble slips. consistent with hacker activity, show that the system may have been hacked on Sept. 14, 2004. Three hours is now missing from the vote-counting computer's "audit log," an automatically generated record, similar to the black box in an airplane, which registers certain kinds of events. COMPUTER FOLKS: Here are the details about remote access vulnerability through the modem connecting polling place voting machines with the central vote-counting server in each county elections office. This applies specifically to all Diebold systems (1,000 counties and townships), and may also apply to other vendors. The prudent course of action is to disconnect all modems, since the downside is small and the danger is significant. The central servers are installed on unpatched, open Windows computers and use RAS (Remote Access Server) to connect to the voting machines through telephone lines. Since RAS is not adequately protected, anyone in the world, even terrorists, who can figure out the server's phone number can change vote totals without being detected by observers. The passwords in many locations are easily guessed, and the access phone numbers can be learned through social engineering or war dialing. ELECTION OFFICIALS: The only way to protect tomorrow's election from this type of attack is to disconnect the servers from the modems now. Under some configurations, attacks by remote access are possible even if the modem appears to be turned off. The modem lines should be physically disconnected. We obtained these documents through a public records request. The video was taken at a press conference held by the King County elections chief Friday Oct 29. The audit log is a computer-generated automatic record similar to the "black box" in an airplane, that automatically records access to the Diebold GEMS central tabulator (unless, of course, you go into it in the clandestine way we demonstrated on September 22 in Washington DC at the National Press club.) The central tabulator audit log is an FEC-required security feature. The kinds of things it detects are the kinds of things you might see if someone was tampering with the votes: Opening the vote file, previewing and/or printing interim results, altering candidate definitions (a method that can be used to flip votes). Three hours is missing altogether from the Sept. 14 Washington State primary held six weeks ago. Here is a copy of the GEMS audit log. Note that all entries from 9:52 p.m. until 1:31 a.m. are missing. One report that GEMS automatically puts in the audit log is the "summary report." This is the interim results report. We obtained the actual Sept. 14 summary reports, printed directly from the King County tabulator GEMS program, because we went there and watched on election night and collected these reports. These reports were also collected by party observers, candidates, and were on the Web site for King County. Here are summary reports which are now missing from the audit log. Note the time and date stamps on the reports. Note also that they are signed by Dean Logan, King County elections chief. We have the original reports signed in ink on election night. What does all this mean? We know that summary reports show up in the audit log. There are other audit logs, like the one that tracks modem transmissions, but this audit log tracks summary reports. Dean Logan held a press conference Friday morning, Oct. 29. Kathleen Wynne, a citizen investigator for Black Box Voting, attended the press conference and asked Dean Logan why three hours are missing from the audit log. Here is a video clip Logan said the empty three hours is because no reports were printed. OK. But we have summary reports from 10:34 p.m., 11:38 p.m., 12:11 a.m., 12:46 a.m., and 1:33 p.m. These reports were during the time he said no reports were run. Either the software malfunctioned, or audit log items were deleted. Because remote access through the modems is possible, the system may have been hacked, audit log deleted, without Logan realizing it. Perhaps there are two of this particular kind of audit log? Perhaps this is an incomplete one? Bev Harris called King County elections office records employee Mary Stoa, asking if perhaps there are any other audit logs at all. Mary Stoa called back, reporting that according to Bill Huennikens of King County elections, the audit log supplied to us in our public records request is the only one and the comprehensive and complete one. Perhaps it is a computer glitch? The audit log is 168 pages long and spans 120 days, and the 3 hours just happen to be missing during the most critical three hours on election night. Diebold says altering the audit log cannot be done. Of course, we know a chimpanzee can't get into an elections office and play with the computer, but to demonstrate how easy it is to delete audit log entries, we taught a chimpanzee to delete audit records using an illicit "back door" to get into the program, Diebold told reporters it was a "magic show." Yet, Diebold's own internal memos show they have known the audit log could be altered since 2001! Here is a Diebold memo from October 2001, titled "Altering the audit log," written by Diebold principal engineer Ken Clark: "King County is famous for it" [altering the audit log] Here is Dean Logan, telling a Channel 5 King-TV News reporter that there were no unexpected problems with the Diebold programs. This was at the "MBOS" central ballot counting facility in King County in the wee hours of Sept. 15, on Election Night. Dean Logan on Election Night, Sept 14 2004 Note that he says there were no problems with modem transmission. When we obtained the trouble slips, in a public records request -- documentation that indeed the modems were not working fine, we were accidentally given the access phone number for King County. Were we so inclined, if we had simply kept this under our hat, we could take control of your central server on election night from our living room. Here are the trouble slips showing problems with modems. Note that King County generously provided us with the "secret" information needed to hack in by remote access. We did redact the specific information that gives this information to you. Here are more trouble tickets. One that is a concern: "OK to format memory card?" (This would wipe out the votes in the electronic ballot box.) Election officials: Disconnect those modems NOW. If you don't: You gotta be replaced. Reporters: Some election officials will lie to you. Show your kids what bravery looks like. Be courageous. Report the truth. Citizens: Please help us by joining the Cleanup Crew. For now, e-mail crew at blackboxvoting.org to join, since our signup form has been taken out. Candidates: Make a statement. Do not concede on Election Night. Wait until audits and records can be examined. # # # # # HOW TO MONITOR THE CENTRAL TABULATOR: Black Box Voting developed these guidelines to help you create an audit log, which can then be compared with the FEC-required computer-generated audit log inside the computer. Yes, this is a lot of stuff, and it might feel overwhelming, but whatever you can do -- it is very much appreciated. THINGS TO BRING WITH YOU - A notebook and pen. Preferably a notebook with a sewn binding, if you can find one. Do not take notes on a computer. - A cell phone - Binoculars If you can, also bring these: - A camera - A small tape recorder - A video camera, with a zoom lens if possible Note that some counties will require you to turn off your video camera during the entering of passwords, a valid request. You should, however, be able to videotape the rest. Don.t pull your camera out right away. Avoid confrontation by leaving your video camera in the bag -- better yet, a purse. Pull it out only when there is an event of significance. HUMAN FACTORS You can.t be effective if you make assumptions or let others intimidate you. - Don.t let others make you feel dumb. - Make no assumptions about security. It might be worse than you expect. - Don.t count on the accuracy of anything other people tell you, even if they work for the county or the vendor. - About party observers, techies, or lawyers: Remember that they have not examined the actual software or setup, and they are operating on assumptions, hearsay, or in some cases, may be trying to misdirect your attention. - Vendor contracts prohibit county officials from examining their own software. Elections officials may just be repeating what someone else (the vendor) has told them. YOUR ROLE AS AN OBSERVER: CREATE YOUR OWN AUDIT LOG so it can be compared to the real audit log. Write down the following. For every event, write the date, time, including minutes. 1. NAMES & AFFILIATIONS: Get the names of everyone there. Find out affiliation. 2. WHERE ARE THE COMPUTERS: Establish the number and location of all vote tabulation computers. They call them different things: tabulators, servers. What you want is the computer that adds up all the votes from everywhere in the county. - Some counties have only one. If there are more than one, find out where each one is. If there is more than one tabulator, ask if they are networked together and find out if any of them are in places you can.t observe. 3. SYNCHRONIZE YOUR WATCH with the central vote-tally computer. Ask officials to tell you the time on the computer. If more than one, ask for the time of each and the ID number of each. log the date and time, to the minute, in this format: Nov 02 2004 11:25 p.m. Nov. 03 2004 01:15 a.m. CREATE A LOG FOR THE FOLLOWING: People: Ask names and affiliations for, and log the START and STOP time for: a. Who accesses the terminal (the keyboard and screen) b. Who sits at the terminal c. Who accesses the server (the computer the screen is hooked up to) d. Who enters and leaves the room COMPUTER ACTIVITIES: Log the START and STOP time for the following events and write down the name of the person involved: a. Putting disks, CDs, or any other item in the computer b. Taking disks, CDs, or any other item out of the computer c. Uploading disks, CDs, or any other item d. Viewing a preview of a report e. Putting a report on the Web, even if this is done from another computer f. Printing a report g. NOTE WHAT.S ON THE SCREEN: Use binoculars to view the screen. - Note upload icons. - Use binoculars to read and record error messages. Note the time. - Note indicators of processes, when a status bar shows how much is left to do h. PROGRAM CRASHES: - Watch to see if the program suddenly disappears from the screen (a program crash) or any system error message appears. If so, note the time and other details, and see below for how to record system crashes. - Get the date and time and note who was at the computer - Note whether any results were being transmitted or uploaded at the time the crash occurred. - Did the crash take down the whole computer or did it just close the tabulator program unexpectedly. - Log all activities and conversations that occur just after the crash. If have a tape recorder, leave it in your purse, now is the time to turn it on. But keep making notes regardless of whether you have tape, and trust your gut. What you think might be important is probably important. WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING YOU CAN FIND OUT ABOUT MODEMS. i. Note when, where, and who feeds ballot data into the computer in the central office. Describe what they are feeding the cards into, where the items are located, who does it, and when. j. DISK MANAGEMENT: - Note what kind of data storage device is used to move data around. You are looking for floppy disks, CDs, USB keys (about the size of a pack of gum). - Note where they get the disk from originally (whether it was from the machine, meaning it could have a program or data on it already, or out of a package of new disks). - Track the chain of custody: Where it is taken, and have someone watch it when taken to any other machine, note what programs you can see on the other machine - Note whether (and what time) it comes back and if it is put into the machine again. k. Moving the results: They have to move the results somehow. Ask questions about their procedures. - Is someone coming and going every hour or so with paper results? - Are they moving results to the Internet with a floppy or CD or USB key (looks like a little piece of plastic, about the size of a piece of gum) - If no one is leaving the machine to post the results, chances are they are doing this at the computer, meaning they are probably hooked up to a network or the Internet. Ask questions about the details and record what they say, and the name of the person who says it. l. If you see somebody open a web page or they do something that lets you know there has been Internet access, write it down. m. BEHAVIORAL CUES: - Note whether people look worried or stressed. Log the time it begins and the time it ends and who they are. - A now a word about .wranglers.. Some elections offices appoint a person -- sometimes a party observer they are chummy with -- to act as .wranglers.. They identify any person who might ask troublesome questions, and if an event occurs that could cause embarrassment, the appointed wrangler then goes over to distract the observers. Really. This is an elections procedure in some jurisdictions. They actually call it a wrangler. - If someone comes over and engages you in conversation, look around, and see if officials have suddenly congregated into an office or people are huddling over a computer. See if you can find out what you are not supposed to see. - Log behavior that is distracting, noting the time and person. - Log time and people involved in other distraction events, for example: The lights suddenly go out; a fire alarm goes off; someone spills something, loud noises, someone knocks something over. RECORDS TO REQUEST: Each state has a public records act, but in most cases, you can get records you ask for if you are nice. Here are important records you.ll want: 1. Get a copy of each INTERIM RESULTS REPORT. Stand guard over what you have. If someone comes in to remove or .replace one with a better copy. hang onto the first and take the replacement, marking it. Make sure all interim reports are time-stamped by the computer. If they aren.t, note the exact time you see them appear. 2. Request the COMPUTER AUDIT LOG for Oct. 29-Nov 2 (actually, it is important to get the printout BEFORE YOU LEAVE that night. It will only be a few pages, and can be printed from the vote-tally program.s menu. 3. Ask for a copy of all the POLLING PLACE RESULTS SLIPS. These are sent in with the results cartridges. Try to get copies before you leave that night. If they won.t give copies to you then, put in a public records request and ask how soon you can pick them up. 4. Ask for a copy of THE UPLOAD LOGS. These are on the computer and can be printed out on election night. They list each polling place and the time results were uploaded. 5. There are ADDITIONAL LOGS in the Diebold GEMS programs you can request: >From the GEMS folder .data., ask for the poster logs. There may be folders in the GEMS .data. directory titled .download., .log., .poster. and .results.. Ask for copies of these logs. 6. Here.s a report that is very long but incredibly important and valuable. Ask if you can have the ELECTION NIGHT DETAIL REPORT -- the precinct by precinct results as of the time all memory cards are uploaded from all precincts. Depending on the system, they.ll call it different things -- in Diebold, it is called the Statement of Votes Cast (SOVC) report. 7. Let us know which REPORTS THEY REFUSE to give you on Election Night. We can then put in Freedom of Information (public records) requests formally. Once we have your observation log, and the records you obtain on Election Night, we can start matching up events and data to audit for anomalies. # # # # # Post information in the county and state at BlackBoxVoting.ORG. If the site is hacked out, come back as soon as it is up and post the information. Thank you, and let.s have an orderly election. # # # # # Now, there is a film crew who has been brave enough to capture what's really going on: THIS IS THE ONE: Here's the film that's breaking new ground on voting machine investigations. Includes never before seen footage and information: download 30 minute preview of the upcoming feature film. NOTE: Please give your attention to the real film by the real investigators: Russell Michaels, Simon Ardizzone, and Robert Carrillo Cohen -- they are the real deal. (Someone who ran off with a portion of the proprietary footage has been pitching a similarly named, inferior production which is missing most of the good stuff.) By the way, we've worked with most of the documentary producers out there, and Russell Michaels, Simon Ardizzone and Robert Carrillo Cohen are in a class by themselves -- In my opinion, they are the only filmmakers who have been doing real, in-depth, long-term in-the-field investigations on this issue -- Bev Harris. Remember: - Don't concede: Candidates, make a statement about voting without auditing. Hold off on your concession until the canvass is done - Gotta be replaced: If your county melts down into litigation, hold officials accountable if they chose to ignore warnings and failed to mitigate risks with preventive actions (like disconnecting telephone modems). Note that most voting machine problems will be found between Nov. 3-12, during the canvass, and a few weeks later, when public records requests are obtained. From measl at mfn.org Sun Nov 7 16:32:46 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 18:32:46 -0600 (CST) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20041107183134.S67091@ubzr.zsa.bet> On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, Tyler Durden wrote: > Well, every people deserve the government they get, and these hillbillies > are no exception. Bush will dominate them, take away their rights, make them > poor and scared, and they'll deserve every bit of it. (Where's a Tim May > rant when you need one?) This election *proves* that at least half the electorate, about 60 million people, are just Useless Eaters, who should be eagerly awaiting their Trip Up The Chimneys. > -TD ;-) -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From jya at pipeline.com Sun Nov 7 18:59:00 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 18:59:00 -0800 Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Excellent humor, this Hooverismo, got all the usual targets in his insulting-like-Lenny-Bruce jibe. Probably high on narcotics like Lenny. Imagined victory turns on losers. A bit excessive with hyperbole, but that's code by comics. Remember the CIA Comic from the late 90s? Told hilarious inside the agency jokes that made everyone outside the cocoon blanche and puke, sorry, Bob blew coke through his nose. That comic has not been heard since 9/11, thanks to DoD takeover of the howler stage. Your Nazi-Commie-Crank-Yanker From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Sun Nov 7 16:07:12 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 19:07:12 -0500 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth Message-ID: Holy Crap! Am I on crack? I think I agree with everything here! However... (James Donald wrote...) >I cannot understand why you Bush haters are so excited about this >election when on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Kerry promised to >continue all Bush's policies only more effectually. That's basically why Kerry lost. He didn't seem to challenge anything Bush did, only the way he carried things out. That means the republicans successfully caused any debate to happen on their terms. Kerry's willingness to kowtow to the idea of a benevolent invasion of Iraq just made him seem like a scumbag to me, no matter what he actually believed. However, there are some things that Bush did that, symbolically at least, he should have been drummed out for. The fact that he won and with large voter turnout is more or less a vindication of his crimes. It means that Bush won't be afraid of doing even more, and then the countless mountains of hillbillies out there will watch his back and take the inevitable bullet or two for him. Well, every people deserve the government they get, and these hillbillies are no exception. Bush will dominate them, take away their rights, make them poor and scared, and they'll deserve every bit of it. (Where's a Tim May rant when you need one?) -TD _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From em at em.no-ip.com Sun Nov 7 03:46:20 2004 From: em at em.no-ip.com (Enzo Michelangeli) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 19:46:20 +0800 Subject: Your source code, for sale References: <20041105181248.7F09757E2A@finney.org> <1576.82.70.142.134.1099797702.squirrel@82.70.142.134> Message-ID: <013a01c4c4bf$69dff8a0$0200a8c0@em.noip.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ian Grigg" To: "Hal Finney" Cc: ; ; Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 11:21 AM [Hal:] > > Interesting. In the e-gold case, both parties have the same bank, > > e-gold ltd. The corresponding protocol would be for the buyer to > > instruct e-gold to set aside some money which would go to the > > seller once the seller supplied a certain receipt. That receipt > > would be an email return receipt showing that the seller had sent > > the buyer the content with hash so-and-so, using a cryptographic > > email return-receipt protocol. > > This is to mix up banking and payment systems. Enzo's > description shows banks doing banking - lending money > on paper that eventually pays a rate of return. In > contrast, in the DGC or digital gold currency world, > the issuers of gold like e-gold are payment systems and > not banks. The distinction is that a payment system > does not issue credit. Actually, seeing issuance and acceptance of L/C's only as a money-lending activity is not 100% accurate. "Letter of credit" is a misnomer: an L/C _may_ be used by the seller to obtain credit, but if the documents are "sent for collection" rather than "negotiated", the payment to the seller is delayed until the opening bank will have debited the buyer's account and remitted the due amount to the negotiating bank. To be precise: when the documents are submitted to the negotiating bank by the seller, the latter also draws under the terms of the L/C a "bill of exchange" to be accepted by the buyer; that instrument, just like any draft, may be either sent for collection or negotiated immediately, subject, of course, to final settlement. Also, depending on the agreements between the seller and his bank, the received L/C may be considered as collateral to get further allocation of credit, e.g. to open a "back-to-back L/C" to a seller of raw materials. However, if the documents and the draft are sent for collection, and no other extension of credit are obtained by the buyer, the only advantage of an L/C for the seller is the certainty of being paid by _his_ (negotiating) bank, which he trusts not to collude with the buyer to claim fictitious discrepancies between the actual documents submitted and what the L/C was requesting. (And even in case such discrepancies will turn out to be real, the opening bank will not surrender the Bill of Lading, and therefore the cargo, to the buyer until the latter will have accepted all the discrepancies: so in the worst case the cargo will remain under the seller's control, to be shipped back and/or sold to some other buyer. If it acted differently, the opening bank would go against the standard practice defined in the UCP ICC 500 (http://internet.ggu.edu/~emilian/PUBL500.htm) and its reputation would be badly damaged). So, the L/C mechanism, independently from allocation of credit, _does_ provide a way out of the dilemma "which one should come first, payment or delivery?"; and this is achieved by leveraging on the reputation of parties separately trusted by the endpoints of the transaction. Generally speaking, it is debatable whether "doing banking" only means "accepting deposits and providing credit" or also "handling payments for a fee": surely banks routinely do both, although they do not usually enjoy a _regulatory franchise_ on payments because failures in that field are not usually argued to be capable of snowballing into systemic failures. (Austrian economists argue that that's also the case with provision of credit, but it's a much more controversial issue). In the US, as we know, Greenspan's FED decided several years ago against heavy regulation of the payments business, and most industrialized countries chose to follow suit. > So, in the e-gold scenario, there would need to be > similar third parties independent of the payment system > to provide the credit moving in the reverse direction to > the goods. In the end it would be much like Enzo's > example, with a third party with the seller, a third > party with the buyer, and one or two third parties who > are dealing the physical goods. There have been some > thoughts in the direction of credit creation in the > gold community, but nothing of any sustainability has > occurred as yet. That would probably end up attracting unwelcome attention by the regulators. Besides, wouldn't that require some sort of fractional banking, resulting in a money supply multiple of the monetary base by an unstable multiplier, and ultimately bringing back the disadvantages of fiat currencies? Enzo From measl at mfn.org Sun Nov 7 19:13:39 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 21:13:39 -0600 (CST) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20041107211146.C67091@ubzr.zsa.bet> On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, Tyler Durden wrote: > Received: from 24.90.217.26 by by24fd.bay24.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; > JAT wrote... > > >This election *proves* that at least half the electorate, about 60 million > >people, are just Useless Eaters, who should be eagerly awaiting their Trip > >Up The Chimneys. > > Ahhhh...I need a cigarette. Was it as good for you as it was for me? :-) > But I suspect it's far more likely that some large batch of USA-ians will > end up having a surprise meeting with Allah as the result of a big ole > stinky dirty bomb. And with Iraq II we'll have an endless supply of suicide > bombers ready to deliver. The only drawback is that there's a solid chance > it'll be set off a few hundred feet from where I work. Manhattan, eh? > Received: from 24.90.217.26 by by24fd.bay24.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Yeah, you'll probably be one of the first. Bummer. > Ah well. Dems da breaks. We had a good run. 200 years is about average actually, at least as far as imperialist empires go. > -TD -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From jamesd at echeque.com Sun Nov 7 21:14:43 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 21:14:43 -0800 Subject: In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418F00C3.5060600@echeque.com> -- Peter Gutmann wrote: > Nobles expected to surrender to other nobles and be ransomed. > Commoners didn't respect this, and almost never took prisoners. > Henry's orders didn't make that much difference, at best they were a > "we'll turn a blind eye" notification to his troops. The english army was well disciplined, and in battle did what it what it was told. About half way through the battle of Agincourt, King Henry decided he could not afford so many troops guarding so many prisoners, and told them kill-em-all. Nobility had nothing to do with it. It did not matter who took you prisoner. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG QwzmnNSSaHhQhQItWATHwnWB7cLchcXDK+wV1pDP 4p0FRureqYrveRbFxz5h7VDonlv9au7JlTFdp/2BL From measl at mfn.org Sun Nov 7 19:29:13 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 21:29:13 -0600 (CST) Subject: Supreme Court Issues In-Reply-To: <20041107043401.GA25622@arion.soze.net> References: <20041107043401.GA25622@arion.soze.net> Message-ID: <20041107212719.P67091@ubzr.zsa.bet> On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, Justin wrote: > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/politics/07court.html?partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print > > We're going to get some extremist anti-abortion, pro-internment, > anti-1A, anti-4A, anti-5A, anti-14A, right-wing wacko. You mean Shrub is going to elevate Clarence Thomas? Did we bring a new secretary for him to harrass? > Imagine Ashcroft as Chief Justice. Oh. My. God. Don't even *think* of such a thing. Seriously, I don't believe he could make it through confirmation, although he would likely (a) be a recess appointment, and (b) serve till the filibuster ended in 2006 :-( -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From measl at mfn.org Sun Nov 7 19:40:22 2004 From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 21:40:22 -0600 (CST) Subject: The St. Louis Pledge Message-ID: <20041107214009.K67091@ubzr.zsa.bet> On Sat, 6 Nov 2004, Jason wrote: > Republican Lists > > http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=RPC&cycle=2004 > http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=RNC&cycle=2004 > http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=NRCC&cycle=2004 > http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=NRSC&cycle=2004 For those of you familiar with the Boulder Pledge against spam (see http://www.panix.com/~tbetz/boulder.shtml), I submit the St. Louis Pledge Against Fascism: "Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered by a contributor to George Bush's campaign. This is my contribution to the survival of freedom in the United States." -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin at mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time From rah at shipwright.com Sun Nov 7 18:42:42 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 21:42:42 -0500 Subject: Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster Message-ID: Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Report Monday 08 November 2004 Everyone remembers Florida's 2000 election debacle, and all of the new terms it introduced to our political lexicon: Hanging chads, dimpled chads, pregnant chads, overvotes, undervotes, Sore Losermans, Jews for Buchanan and so forth. It took several weeks, battalions of lawyers and a questionable decision from the U.S. Supreme Court to show the nation and the world how messy democracy can be. By any standard, what happened in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election was a disaster. What happened during the Presidential election of 2004, in Florida, in Ohio, and in a number of other states as well, was worse. Some of the problems with this past Tuesday's election will sound all too familiar. Despite having four years to look into and deal with the problems that cropped up in Florida in 2000, the 'spoiled vote' chad issue reared its ugly head again. Investigative journalist Greg Palast, the man almost singularly responsible for exposing the more egregious examples of illegitimate deletions of voters from the rolls, described the continued problems in an article published just before the election, and again in an article published just after the election. Four years later, and none of the Florida problems were fixed. In fact, by all appearances, they spread from Florida to Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan and elsewhere. Worse, these problems only scratch the surface of what appears to have happened in Tuesday's election. The fix that was put in place to solve these problems - the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 after the Florida debacle - appears to have gone a long way towards making things worse by orders of magnitude, for it was the Help America Vote Act which introduced paperless electronic touch-screen voting machines to millions of voters across the country. At first blush, it seems like a good idea. Forget the chads, the punch cards, the archaic booths like pianos standing on end with the handles and the curtains. This is the 21st century, so let's do it with computers. A simple screen presents straightforward choices, and you touch the spot on the screen to vote for your candidate. Your vote is recorded by the machine, and then sent via modem to a central computer which tallies the votes. Simple, right? Not quite. A Diebold voting machine. Is there any evidence that these machines went haywire on Tuesday? Nationally, there were more than 1,100 reports of electronic voting machine malfunctions. A few examples: * In Broward County, Florida, election workers were shocked to discover that their shiny new machines were counting backwards. "Tallies should go up as more votes are counted," according to this report. "That's simple math. But in some races, the numbers had gone down. Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward." * In Franklin County, Ohio, electronic voting machines gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in one precinct alone. "Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B," according to this report. "Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said Bush received 365 votes there. The other 13 voters who cast ballots either voted for other candidates or did not vote for president." * In Craven County, North Carolina, a software error on the electronic voting machines awarded Bush 11,283 extra votes. "The Elections Systems and Software equipment," according to this report, "had downloaded voting information from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added, the precinct totals were added a second time. An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly." * In Carteret County, North Carolina, "More than 4,500 votes may be lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes. Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost." * In LaPorte County, Indiana, a Democratic stronghold, the electronic voting machines decided that each precinct only had 300 voters. "At about 7 p.m. Tuesday," according to this report, "it was noticed that the first two or three printouts from individual precinct reports all listed an identical number of voters. Each precinct was listed as having 300 registered voters. That means the total number of voters for the county would be 22,200, although there are actually more than 79,000 registered voters." * In Sarpy County, Nebraska, the electronic touch screen machines got generous. "As many as 10,000 extra votes," according to this report, "have been tallied and candidates are still waiting for corrected totals. Johnny Boykin lost his bid to be on the Papillion City Council. The difference between victory and defeat in the race was 127 votes. Boykin says, 'When I went in to work the next day and saw that 3,342 people had shown up to vote in our ward, I thought something's not right.' He's right. There are not even 3,000 people registered to vote in his ward. For some reason, some votes were counted twice." Stories like this have been popping up in many of the states that put these touch-screen voting machines to use. Beyond these reports are the folks who attempted to vote for one candidate and saw the machine give their vote to the other candidate. Sometimes, the flawed machines were taken off-line, and sometimes they were not. As for the reports above, the mistakes described were caught and corrected. How many mistakes made by these machines were not caught, were not corrected, and have now become part of the record? The flaws within these machines are well documented. Professors and researchers from Johns Hopkins performed a detailed analysis of these electronic voting machines in May of 2004. In their results, the Johns Hopkins researchers stated, "This voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We identify several problems including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. We show that voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal software." "Furthermore," they continued, "we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered and executed without access to the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a poll worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter privacy and match votes with the voters who cast them. We conclude that this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election." Many of these machines do not provide the voter with a paper ballot that verifies their vote. So if an error - or purposefully inserted malicious code - in the untested machine causes their vote to go for the other guy, they have no way to verify that it happened. The lack of a paper ballot also means the end of recounts as we have known them; now, on these new machines, a recount amounts to pushing a button on the machine and getting a number in return, but without those paper ballots to do a comparison, there is no way to verify the validity of that count. Worst of all is the fact that all the votes collected by these machines are sent via modem to a central tabulating computer which counts the votes on Windows software. This means, essentially, that any gomer with access to the central tabulation machine who knows how to work an Excel spreadsheet can go into this central computer and make wholesale changes to election totals without anyone being the wiser. Bev Harris, who has been working tirelessly since the passage of the Help America Vote Act to inform people of the dangers present in this new process, got a chance to demonstrate how easy it is to steal an election on that central tabulation computer while a guest on the CNBC program 'Topic A With Tina Brown.' Ms. Brown was off that night, and the guest host was none other than Governor Howard Dean. Thanks to Governor Dean and Ms. Harris, anyone watching CNBC that night got to see just how easy it is to steal an election because of these new machines and the flawed processes they use. "In a voting system," Harris said on the show, "you have all the different voting machines at all the different polling places, sometimes, as in a county like mine, there's a thousand polling places in a single county. All those machines feed into the one machine so it can add up all the votes. So, of course, if you were going to do something you shouldn't to a voting machine, would it be more convenient to do it to each of the 4000 machines, or just come in here and deal with all of them at once? What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It's just a regular computer." Harris then proceeded to open a laptop computer that had on it the software used to tabulate the votes by one of the aforementioned central processors. Journalist Thom Hartman describes what happened next: "So Harris had Dean close the Diebold GEMS tabulation software, go back to the normal Windows PC desktop, click on the 'My Computer' icon, choose 'Local Disk C:,' open the folder titled GEMS, and open the sub-folder 'LocalDB' which, Harris noted, 'stands for local database, that's where they keep the votes.' Harris then had Dean double-click on a file in that folder titled Central Tabulator Votes,' which caused the PC to open the vote count in a database program like Excel. 'Let's just flip those,' Harris said, as Dean cut and pasted the numbers from one cell into the other. Harris sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and said, 'We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds.'" Any system that makes it this easy to steal or corrupt an election has no business being anywhere near the voters on election day. The counter-argument to this states that people with nefarious intent, people with a partisan stake in the outcome of an election, would have to have access to the central tabulation computers in order to do harm to the process. Keep the partisans away from the process, and everything will work out fine. Surely no partisan political types were near these machines on Tuesday night when the votes were counted, right? One of the main manufacturers of these electronic touch-screen voting machines is Diebold, Inc. More than 35 counties in Ohio alone used the Diebold machines on Tuesday, and millions of voters across the country did the same. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Diebold gave $100,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2000, along with additional contributions between 2001 and 2002 which totaled $95,000. Of the four companies competing for the contracts to manufacture these voting machines, only Diebold contributed large sums to any political party. The CEO of Diebold is a man named Walden O'Dell. O'Dell was very much on board with the Bush campaign, having said publicly in 2003 that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." So much for keeping the partisans at arm's length. Is there any evidence that vote totals were deliberately tampered with by people who had a stake in the outcome? Nothing specific has been documented to date. Jeff Fisher, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District, claims to have evidence that the Florida election was hacked, and says further that he knows who hacked it and how it was done. Such evidence is not yet forthcoming. There are, however, some disturbing and compelling trends that indicate things are not as they should be. This chart displays a breakdown of counties in Florida. It lists the voters in each county by party affiliation, and compares expected vote totals to the reported results. It also separates the results into two sections, one for 'touch-screen' counties and the other for optical scan counties. Over and over in these counties, the results, based upon party registration, did not come close to matching expectations. It can be argued, and has been argued, that such results indicate nothing more or less than a President getting cross-over voters, as well as late-breaking undecided voters, to come over to his side. These are Southern Democrats, and the numbers from previous elections show that many have often voted Republican. Yet the news wires have been inundated for well over a year with stories about how stridently united Democratic voters were behind the idea of removing Bush from office. It is worth wondering why that unity did not permeate these Democratic voting districts. If that unity was there, it is worth asking why the election results in these counties do not reflect this. Most disturbing of all is the reality that these questionable Diebold voting machines are not isolated to Florida. This list documents, as of March 2003, all of the counties in all of the 37 states where Diebold machines were used to count votes. The document is 28 pages long. That is a lot of counties, and a lot of votes, left in the hands of machines that have a questionable track record, that send their vote totals to central computers which make it far too easy to change election results, that were manufactured by a company with a personal, financial, and publicly stated stake in George W. Bush holding on to the White House. This map indicates where different voting devices were used nationally. The areas where electronic voting machines were used is marked in blue. A poster named 'TruthIsAll' on the DemocraticUnderground.com forums laid out the questionable results of Tuesday's election in succinct fashion: "To believe that Bush won the election, you must also believe: That the exit polls were wrong; that Zogby's 5pm election day calls for Kerry winning Ohio and Florida were wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll); that Harris' last-minute polling for Kerry was wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll); that incumbent rule #1 - undecideds break for the challenger - was wrong; That the 50% rule - an incumbent doesn't do better than his final polling - was wrong; That the approval rating rule - an incumbent with less than 50% approval will most likely lose the election - was wrong; that it was just a coincidence that the exit polls were correct where there was a paper trail and incorrect (+5% for Bush) where there was no paper trail; that the surge in new young voters had no positive effect for Kerry; that Kerry did worse than Gore against an opponent who lost the support of scores of Republican newspapers who were for Bush in 2000; that voting machines made by Republicans with no paper trail and with no software publication, which have been proven by thousands of computer scientists to be vulnerable in scores of ways, were not tampered with in this election." In short, we have old-style vote spoilage in minority communities. We have electronic voting machines losing votes and adding votes all across the country. We have electronic voting machines whose efficiency and safety have not been tested. We have electronic voting machines that offer no paper trail to ensure a fair outcome. We have central tabulators for these machines running on Windows software, compiling results that can be demonstrably tampered with. We have the makers of these machines publicly professing their preference for George W. Bush. We have voter trends that stray from the expected results. We have these machines counting millions of votes all across the country. Perhaps this can all be dismissed. Perhaps rants like the one posted by 'TruthIsAll' are nothing more than sour grapes from the side that lost. Perhaps all of the glitches, wrecked votes, unprecedented voting trends and partisan voting-machine connections can be explained away. If so, this reporter would very much like to see those explanations. At a bare minimum, the fact that these questions exist at all represents a grievous undermining of the basic confidence in the process required to make this democracy work. Democracy should not ever require leaps of faith, and we have put the fate of our nation into the hands of machines that require such a leap. It is unacceptable across the board, and calls into serious question not only the election we just had, but any future election involving these machines. Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler, all members of the House Judiciary Committee, posted a letter on November 5th to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. In the letter, they asked for an investigation into the efficacy of these electronic voting machines. The letter reads as follows: November 5, 2004 The Honorable David M. Walker Comptroller General of the United States U.S. General Accountability Office 441 G Street, NW Washington, DC 20548 Dear Mr. Walker: We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration. In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which we would also request that you review and evaluate for us: In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. ("Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Associated Press, November 5) An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed to record thousands of votes. "South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal," (Id.) In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold more data that it did. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," (Id.) In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that resulted in some votes being left uncounted. (Id.) In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan machines that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms. The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous reports from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman Wexler's staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush appeared on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states, particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was among over one thousand such problems reported. ("Touchscreen Voting Problems Reported," Associated Press, November 5) Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. ("All Eyes on Ohio," Dan Lothian, CNN, November 3) We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004. Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry. Sincerely, John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler Ranking Member, Ranking Member, Member of Congress House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Chairman "The essence of democracy," wrote the Congressmen, "is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004." Those fears appear to be valid. John Kerry and John Edwards promised on Tuesday night that every vote would count, and that every vote would be counted. By Wednesday morning, Kerry had conceded the race to Bush, eliciting outraged howls from activists who were watching the reports of voting irregularities come piling in. Kerry had said that 10,000 lawyers were ready to fight any wrongdoing in this election. One hopes that he still has those lawyers on retainer. According to black-letter election law, Bush does not officially get a second term until the electors from the Electoral College go to Washington D.C on December 12th. Perhaps Kerry's 10,000 lawyers, along with a real investigation per the request of Conyers, Nadler and Wexler, could give those electors something to think about in the interim. In the meantime, soon-to-be-unemployed DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe sent out an email on Saturday night titled 'Help determine the Democratic Party's next steps.' In the email, McAuliffe states, "If you were involved in these grassroots activities, we want to hear from you about your experience. What did you do? Did you feel the action you took was effective? Was it a good experience for you? How would you make it better? Tell us your thoughts." He provided a feedback form where such thoughts can be sent. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Sun Nov 7 19:05:48 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 22:05:48 -0500 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth Message-ID: JAT wrote... >This election *proves* that at least half the electorate, about 60 million >people, are just Useless Eaters, who should be eagerly awaiting their Trip >Up The Chimneys. Ahhhh...I need a cigarette. But I suspect it's far more likely that some large batch of USA-ians will end up having a surprise meeting with Allah as the result of a big ole stinky dirty bomb. And with Iraq II we'll have an endless supply of suicide bombers ready to deliver. The only drawback is that there's a solid chance it'll be set off a few hundred feet from where I work. Ah well. Dems da breaks. We had a good run. -TD _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement From pcapelli at gmail.com Sun Nov 7 20:32:39 2004 From: pcapelli at gmail.com (Pete Capelli) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 23:32:39 -0500 Subject: The St. Louis Pledge In-Reply-To: <20041107214009.K67091@ubzr.zsa.bet> References: <20041107214009.K67091@ubzr.zsa.bet> Message-ID: On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 21:40:22 -0600 (CST), J.A. Terranson wrote: > St. Louis Pledge Against Fascism: > > "Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered by a > contributor to George Bush's campaign. This is my contribution to the > survival of freedom in the United States." I guess this is your last Internet usage, then, as Cisco is a major GWB contributor, as well as a contributor to his inaugural fund(s). -- Pete Capelli pcapelli at ieee.org http://www.capelli.org PGP Key ID:0x829263B6 "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 From isn at c4i.org Mon Nov 8 02:32:09 2004 From: isn at c4i.org (InfoSec News) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 04:32:09 -0600 (CST) Subject: [ISN] Velva Klaessy, government code breaker, dies at 88 Message-ID: http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5072390.html Trudi Hahn Star Tribune November 7, 2004 Velva Klaessy, a government cryptanalyst who accomplished some firsts for female code breakers -- with accompanying problems in the male-dominated field -- died Sept. 16 in Golden Valley. She was 88. "She could never talk about it," said her brother Dale Klaessy of Minnetonka. "It was a lonely, lonely job." Born to a farm couple in 1915 in Renwick, Iowa, Klaessy got a scholarship during the Depression to attend what is now Northern Iowa University. With no money to buy clothes, her father bought her 500 baby chicks to raise. When she sold them, she bought fabric and made her wardrobe. She received her degree in math in 1937 and took her first job in a small town dominated by a Protestant congregation. It decreed that the public-school teachers weren't allowed to play cards or go to the movies. After the town protested that she was insulting its sons by dating a young man from a different town, she left at the end of the year. In 1944, she was teaching high school math and science in Cherokee, Iowa, when a government recruiter came to ask if she had any students good in math who might want to join the war effort as a cryptologist in the Army Signal Corps. Her best students were all headed for college, so she didn't want to recommend them, but she took the job herself. After World War II she stayed in the field as the Armed Forces Security Agency and the National Security Agency (NSA) were formed. Although much of her work remains classified, information from the National Cryptologic Museum of the NSA, based at Fort Meade, Md., states that she was a member for many years of the highly respected Technical Consultants group, which assisted other analytic offices with their most difficult problems. In the summer of 1953, she and a male officer were posted temporarily to the Far East to train military personnel. According to oral tradition, the museum said, female NSA employees had never gotten temporary posts in that part of the world. Before she left the consultants group, she was posted temporarily to the United Kingdom. Her British counterpart threw a welcoming party -- in a men's club from which women were barred, her brother said. Female NSA employees battled for recognition at home, too. At one point a supervisor told her that she had earned a promotion but he was giving it to a male co-worker "because he had a family," her brother said. From 1958 to 1967, Klaessy finally received positions of high responsibility in sectors dealing with cutting-edge technology, the museum said, including being named chief in 1964 of the New and Unidentified Signals Division. She returned in 1967 to what is now called the extended enterprise when she was named deputy senior U.S. liaison officer in Ottawa, Canada. In 1970 she was named senior liaison officer in Ottawa, becoming the first woman to hold the senior post anywhere in the world. As senior officer, she represented the U.S. Intelligence Board and the NSA with appropriate organizations in Canada in all matters about signal intelligence and communications security. She returned to Fort Meade in 1975 but retired shortly afterward to care for ill relatives, her brother said. She was found to have Parkinson's disease about 1987 and moved to the Twin Cities to be close to relatives. In addition to her brother Dale, survivors include another brother, Earl of Spencer, Iowa. Services have been held in Iowa. _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From isn at c4i.org Mon Nov 8 02:32:34 2004 From: isn at c4i.org (InfoSec News) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 04:32:34 -0600 (CST) Subject: [ISN] E-gold Tracks Cisco Code Thief Message-ID: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1713878,00.asp By Michael Myser November 5, 2004 The electronic currency site that the Source Code Club said it will use to accept payment for Cisco Systems Inc.'s firewall source code is confident it can track down the perpetrators. Dr. Douglas Jackson, chairman of E-gold Ltd., which runs www.e-gold.com, said the company is already monitoring accounts it believes belong to the Source Code Club, and there has been no activity to date. "We've got a pretty good shot at getting them in our system," said Jackson, adding that the company formally investigates 70 to 80 criminal activities a year and has been able to determine the true identity of users in every case. On Monday, a member of the Source Code Club posted on a Usenet group that the group is selling the PIX 6.3.1 firewall firmware for $24,000, and buyers can purchase anonymously using e-mail, PGP keys and e-gold.com, which doesn't confirm identities of its users. "Bad guys think they can cover their tracks in our system, but they discover otherwise when it comes to an actual investigation," said Jackson. The purpose of the e-gold system, which is based on 1.86 metric tons of gold worth the equivalent of roughly $25 million, is to guarantee immediate payment, avoid market fluctuations and defaults, and ease transactions across borders and currencies. There is no credit line, and payments can only be made if covered by the amount in the account. Like the Federal Reserve, there is a finite value in the system. There are currently 1.5 million accounts at e-gold.com, 175,000 of those Jackson considers "active." To have value, or e-gold, in an account, users must receive a payment in e-gold. Often, new account holders will pay cash to existing account holders in return for e-gold. Or, in the case of SCC, they will receive payment for a service. The only way to cash out of the system is to pay another party for a service or cash trade, which Jackson said creates an increasingly traceable web of activity. He did offer a caveat, however: "There is always the risk that they are clever enough to figure out an angle for offloading their e-gold in a way that leads to a dead end, but that tends to be much more difficult than most bad guys think." This is all assuming the SCC actually receives a payment, or even has the source code in the first place. It's the ultimate buyer bewarethe code could be made up, tampered with or may not exist. And because the transaction through e-gold is instantaneous and guaranteed, there is no way for the buyer to back out. Dave Hawkins, technical support engineer with Radware Inc. in Mahwah, N.J., believes SCC is merely executing a publicity stunt. "If they had such real code, it's more likely they would have sold it in underground forums to legitimate hackers rather than broadcasting the sale on Usenet," he said. "Anyone who did have the actual code would probably keep it secret, examining it to build private exploits. By selling it, it could find its way into the public, and all those juicy vulnerabilities [would] vanish in the next version." "There's really no way to tell if this is legitimate," said Russ Cooper, senior scientist with security firm TruSecure Corp. of Herndon, Va. Cooper, however, believes there may be a market for it nonetheless. By posting publicly, SCC is able to get the attention of criminal entities they otherwise might not reach. "It's advertising from one extortion team to another extortion team," he said. "These DDOS [distributed denial of service] extortionists, who are trying to get betting sites no doubt would like to have more ways to do that." _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 05:38:22 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:38:22 -0500 Subject: Single Field Shapes Quantum Bits Message-ID: Technology Review Single Field Shapes Quantum Bits November 8, 2005 Quantum computers, which tap the properties of particles like atoms, photons and electrons to carry out computations, could potentially use a variety of schemes: individual photons controlled by optical networks, clouds of atoms linked by laser beams, and electrons trapped in quantum dots embedded in silicon chips. Due to the strange nature of quantum particles, quantum computers are theoretically much faster than ordinary computers at solving certain large problems, like cracking secret codes. Chip-based quantum computers would have a distinct advantage - they could leverage the manufacturing infrastructure of the semiconductor industry. Controlling individual electrons, however, is extremely challenging. Researchers have recently realized that it may be possible to control the electrons in a quantum computer using a single magnetic field rather than having to produce extremely small, precisely focused magnetic fields for each electron. Researchers from the University of Toronto and the University of Wisconsin at Madison have advanced this idea with a scheme that allows individual electrons to serve as the quantum bits that store and process computer information. Electrons have two magnetic orientations, spin up and spin down, which can represent the 1s and 0s of computing. The researchers' scheme relies on the interactions of pairs of electrons. Tiny electrodes positioned near quantum dots -- bits of semiconductor material that can trap single electrons - can draw neighboring electrons near enough that they exchange energy. The researchers' scheme takes a pair of electrons through eleven incremental steps that involve the electron interaction and a global magnetic field to flip one of the bits from a 0 to a 1 or vice versa. The technique could be used practically in 10 to 20 years, according to the researchers. The work appeared in the July 15, 2004 issue of Physical Review Letters. Technology Research News -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 05:59:29 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:59:29 -0500 Subject: Hedge Funds Are Bringing Democracy to the Financial World Message-ID: The Wall Street Journal November 8, 2004 BUSINESS EUROPE Hedge Funds Are Bringing Democracy to the Financial World By JEAN-MICHEL PAUL November 8, 2004 Assets under management by hedge funds have reached the $1 trillion mark, having grown at 20% a year since 1990. Hardly a day goes by without a new hedge fund being set up by a former trader or portfolio manager. This is the largest single structural change in the financial world since the coming of age of mutual funds at the beginning of the '80s. What we are in effect looking at is the beginning of a fundamental shift: the disintermediation of the role played by investment banks and their trading floors in particular. As technology allows set-up costs to dwindle and economies of scale to disappear, successful traders and portfolio managers, attracted by higher rewards, will continue to leave the large trading floors to set up shop offering formerly exclusive products to investors at large. In the process, a new market is being created and transaction costs decreased. Why and how is this happening? First and foremost, the hedge-fund revolution has been made possible by new technology that translated into a lower cost base. The sunk cost of starting and establishing a new investment and trading platform fund has literally collapsed -- as day traders well know. The Internet, together with the ever-increased capabilities of ever-cheaper computers and the democratization of programming and software skills, are enabling a few people to team up and create an efficient office at low cost. A team of two or three with a limited budget can now achieve what it would have taken dozens of people to do at considerably higher cost. Second, hedge funds are characterized by their asymmetric payoff. Managers typically get 2% of management fees and 20% of any performance achieved over a given benchmark. This incentive encourages the managers to perform, aligning investors' and managers' interest. It also means that the best traders will have an irrepressible incentive to set up their own hedge funds. The best performers will also have every interest in taking in as much money under management as they can without decreasing their performance. This means that asset allocation to traders and trading strategies is democratized and optimized. Investment banks have responded by embracing what they cannot prevent. They try to limit the brain drain by creating internal hedge-fund structures and to limit profitability decline by increasing the trading capital at risk. But beyond these defensive moves, they are inventing new roles for themselves as "platform provider," "prime broker" and even "capital introducers." This further modifies the financial landscape by allowing hedge funds to capitalize on the banks' distribution networks and customer access while maintaining their investment-decision independence. The keys to the banks' old trading-room environments were economies of scale, high sunk costs -- and professional asset allocation and supervision. Allocation is about optimal allocation of resources, chiefly capital, to the different strategies offered by the trading teams as opportunities come and go as the economic cycle unfolds. Risk control is about a constant independent review of the traders' positions, an ongoing assessment of the risk involved in the strategy. Upstart hedge funds have no risk-management departments but as traders set up independent hedge funds, risk control and asset allocation have been taken over by so-called funds of funds. These funds of funds, which receive funds from institutional investors and private banks, carry out repeated due diligence on hedge funds, looking for best of breeds. They also make regular quantitative and qualitative supervision control, so as to monitor ongoing risk-taking. Thanks to the expansion of the hedge-fund universe, trades and strategies that were yesterday the private backyard of investment banks are now, through hedge funds, available to traditional investors. This in itself creates for investors at large -- and chief among them pension funds and insurance -- a seemingly new asset class, that is a set of financial instruments whose payoff is fundamentally different and decorrelated from the traditional long-only approach. But the hedge fund world is not problem free. A question often associated with the hedge-fund transformation is capacity. By this, it is meant that the ability of a hedge fund to accommodate new investors while maintaining returns will diminish. There is no doubt that for "traditional" investments this is true. Similarly, as more and more "traders" arbitrage the same inefficiencies, these disappear, together with the arbitrage profits. This phenomenon explains a significant part of the lackluster results of the hedge-fund industry as a whole so far this year compared to former years. But because of the lower set-up costs, the lighter structure and higher incentives, ideas for new strategies are appearing and being deployed faster than ever before. This enables a continuous stream of new, if temporary, superior returns as start-up fund exploit new strategies. In other words, the law of creative destruction applies to hedge funds too, ensuring that new "alternative" funds will continuously replace overcrowded traditional alternative strategies. A related genuine concern is the increased level of leverage observed in the industry. As the industry develops to play its role as a significant asset class, some hedge funds, and indeed funds of funds, unable to find new markets to generate the uncorrelated alpha, the industry holy grail, continue to play their traditional market in an ever increasing leveraged way. But a leveraged position is bound to increase volatility. This, in turn, as was shown in the famous LTCM debacle, is bound to translate into failures from time to time. This is all the more the case because most positions will exhibit a strong correlation in a liquidity crisis. Indeed, hedge-fund failures are likely to become more common going forward, if only because the sheer number of hedge funds has increased. Similarly, pressure on hedge-fund margins is bound to increase. These corrections are also part of the market maturing and should be welcomed. Hedge funds are here to stay. The investment-disintermediation paradigm is based on a financial-industry reorganization that offers the prospect for a more efficient and transparent market as well as access to new investable asset classes. Its implications are as important to the financial sector as the appearance of the high-yield market in the 1980s was to the corporate-bond industry. Mr. Paul is a senior analyst at Atlas Capital Group. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 06:07:27 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:07:27 -0500 Subject: Did electronic voting pass the test? Message-ID: The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Internet and Law ; eGovernment ; Did electronic voting pass the test? By Robin Bloor, Bloor Research (robin.lettice at theregister.co.uk) Published Friday 5th November 2004 12:38 GMT At about the time that Senator John Kerry had accepted defeat and phoned President Bush to congratulate him, stories were circulating on the Internet claiming that the electronic voting machines in Florida and Ohio and some other states might have been rigged for a Bush victory. The claim stems from the fact that exit polls were indicating a marginal Kerry victory in those key states, but his apparent exit poll advantage was not reflected in the total vote count. This indeed was the shape of the story if you sat through the election night telethon. At first it looked as though Kerry was doing well, but as the night wore on a Bush victory became more and more likely. So what are we to think of the claim? Despite the "conspiracy theory", there is good reason to believe that it was a genuine Bush victory. First of all, the final outcome reflected the fact that Bush held a small lead in the opinion polls right up to election day. Although all of the individual polls were subject to a margin of error greater than Bush's lead, the aggregation of the polls was still slightly in favour of Bush (and this reduces the statistical error margin). The pollsters had been plagued by suggestions that they were not properly accounting for the youth vote and most, if not all of them, examined, re-examined and adjusted their weighting parameters in an attempt to account for the expected high youth vote for Kerry. The pollsters have a big self-interest in not being too far wrong. The indications, on election night itself, were that the level of disenfranchisement through technology failure, long lines of voting and voters being turned away from the polls for lack of proper credentials, was much lower than in 2000 and, although there may have been one or two areas where there were problems, there is no reason to believe that the election was skewed by such incidents. Another straw in the wind was the gambling money - which has historically provided a reasonable guide to an election's outcome. While it is illegal for most American's to place bets over the Internet (on anything), many of them do. Throughout the whole campaign the betting odds were in Bush's favour - in effect predicting a Bush victory simply by the weight of money that was gambling on that outcome. The figures for the total bets placed (on Betfair one of the leading sites for such bets) was $4.2m on Bush and $1.2m on Kerry. Finally, the results from Florida and Ohio, which were only marginally in Bush's favour were not particularly out of line with the voting in the US as a whole. As it worked out, these results seemed to reflect the mood of America. So what are we to think of the electronic voting "conspiracy theory"? Here too there are reasons to pause for thought. The companies that supply the machines (Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic, and Sequoia Voting Systems) would destroy their own business if it were ever discovered that the technology was compromised. Would they take the risk? I personally doubt it, especially as it would involve bringing more than one or two people into the "conspiracy", any one of whom could go public on what was going down. Also, bending the software to affect the result in a very subtle way (and get it right) is probably very difficult to achieve. The margin for failure is high and the whole scheme is very risky. There is however legitimate cause for concern in the simple fact that many of the electronic voting machines that were deployed did not have audit trails that validated the figures they gave. If there were any kind of malfunction in any of these, there was simply no way to validate the figures. The justification for complete transparency and validation of voting technology is not only desirable but necessary. Indeed if ever there was a case for the open sourcing of program code then this is it. One hopes that by the time the next major elections in the US come round, there will be paper audit trails on every voting machine deployed. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 06:08:08 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:08:08 -0500 Subject: 37 arrested in net gun swoop Message-ID: The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT 37 arrested in net gun swoop By Tim Richardson (tim.richardson at theregister.co.uk) Published Friday 5th November 2004 15:02 GMT Thirty-seven people have been arrested after the Metropolitan Police seized more than 100 firearms in a crackdown on weapons traded online. Some 700 addresses have been raided over the last four days as officers mounted the UK-wide operation. In all, 86 handguns, ten rifles, three machine guns, seven shotguns, 13 stun guns and a crossbow were nabbed in Operation Bembridge. Class A drugs were also seized during the raids. Said Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, Head of the Met's Specialist Crime Directorate: "This is the climax of a long-term intelligence operation where we have identified weaponry purchased over the Internet. I am delighted by its success and the sheer number of firearms, ammunition and other weapons seized will make London a safer city." The apparent ease to which guns are available online was highlighted this week by a Labour MP who compiled a list of handguns he claims were for sale on internet auction site, eBay. Steve McCabe, MP for Birmingham Hall Green, has called on eBay to pay closer attention to goods for sale on its pages after he was able to buy an air rifle on the auction site last month. He told the House of Commons: "The other week, it was possible for me to buy a gun from the eBay internet site. The way in which the sellers work is simple. They advertise an empty bag or box. The buyer bids for that bag or box, and when that is done, the seller throws in the gun for free. "This site is being used to facilitate a trade in illegal weapons," he said in a call for the Home Secretary to take action. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com Mon Nov 8 06:12:34 2004 From: kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com (John Kelsey) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:12:34 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: This Memorable Day Message-ID: <23625318.1099923155248.JavaMail.root@grover.psp.pas.earthlink.net> >From: Peter Gutmann >Sent: Nov 6, 2004 2:10 AM >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net, ocorrain at yahoo.com >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day >The figure that's usually quoted is that 80% of German's military force was >directed against Russia. Of the remaining 20%, a lot had already been engaged >by France, the UK (via the BEF, the RAF, North Africa), Greece, etc etc before >the US got involved in Europe. So the Russians should get most of the credit. Yep. I think to a first approximation, the US defeated Japan and the USSR defeated Germany. My impression is that a lot of the push to do the D-Day invasion was to make sure the USSR didn't end up in possession of all of Europe at the end of the war. (Given how things developed, this was a pretty sensible concern.) >Peter. --John From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 06:15:11 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:15:11 -0500 Subject: Nerd party needed to replace 'left-wing' Democrats, says area man Message-ID: The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT Nerd party needed to replace 'left-wing' Democrats, says area man By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco (andrew.orlowski at theregister.co.uk) Published Friday 5th November 2004 17:20 GMT Election 2004 A newspaper columnist has called for the old-fashioned, "left wing" Democratic Party to be replaced by a new, emergent party of computer nerds. Free-marketeer Dan Gillmor of Silicon Valley's San Jose Mercury urges the Democrats to abandon "old, discredited politics", while an "increasingly radical middle" needs a new party with some "creative thinking". From where will this come? In a column (http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10086652.htm) published the same day, he tells us. Writing before the outcome was known, Gillmor enthuses about "the most exciting development ... the new world of cyber-politics," where the "expanded horizons" on offer should cancel out the groupthink, which he briefly acknowledges, and lead to greater accountability and participation. Such settler rhetoric - "new world", "horizons" - is familiar stuff from techno utopians. So too is the hope, amongst many intelligent, impatient people with a reluctance to develop their social skills, that we must be able to do better. (Bill Gates doesn't have the patience or inclination to watch TV, and many internet activists don't have the patience or inclination to persuade a stranger, which is a lot more difficult and unrewarding.) We briefly heard about "Emergent Democracy" last Spring, although it disappeared in about the time it takes you to say "Second Superpower". But we're sure to hear more about this itchy, push-button, "interactive" version of democracy, a kind of thumbs down at the Roman Coliseum, in the future. Maybe Dan will become its Arthur Schlesinger. But for now, how can a computer-savvy nerd party help? We don't see Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, having trouble being re-elected, and the man's been described as a "one-man socialist Torquemada." Because politics is n-dimensional, based on values and not some right-left scale, his "old fashioned" efforts to remind corporations of their social responsibilities may well be very popular if put to the public. [*]So it isn't clear that the Democrats must abandon the idea that we're happier when the corporations are left to manage themselves. Nor is it clear that the internet is a net civic good, yet, or that it increased voter turnout more than other factors did in the 2004 election. So the conclusion that we're then invited to draw - that the Democrats are doomed because they're lagging in some kind of technological arms race - doesn't necessarily follow. But let's take each one of these ideas in turn. Man machine Such settler rhetoric flourishes where a sensible grasp of what humans can do, and what the machines can do, is out of kilter. Wild and improbable visions often follow. When something good happens, people are quick to praise the machines. "If people are more moved than ever to participate, I'm betting that the Net played a big role," writes Dan. But if something bad happens, we blame stupid humans for not "getting it". Voters in Texas using machines from Hart InterCivic, discovered that their votes were nullified when they browsed the ballot by turning a wheel. "It's not a machine issue," Shafer said. "It's voters not properly following the instructions." And you might ask, who's fault is it that the Jim Crow boxes were so badly designed? (Dan, to his great credit, urged Californian voters to demand an auditable paper ballot this week, and castigated election officials for not making voters aware that they had the option.) But the echo chamber effect won't go away, because it's a defining characteristic of computer-mediated communications everywhere, and not just in this deeply polarized country. My colleague Thomas Greene puts it most succinctly. "You can say something someone disagrees with at a party, and they'll talk to you. Try doing this online." Where the barriers to participation are low, the barriers to making a hurried exit are equally low. There are no social obligations to sticking around, unlike in the real world. (There are subtle factors within the overall trend. Today's thin-skinned ego-driven weblogger may simply have been yesterday's Usenet faint heart, for example. And well-designed software can encourage better online participation: the DailyKos abandoned weblog software for the much more community-orientated Scoop system, and became the Slashdot of politics - only one where people say interesting things politely.) The settler iconography is no accident: the idea that everything "old fashioned" must be discarded, and everything is new again. "Like the American settlers, internet dwellers create a myth that there was no politics before they arrived," Will Davies pointed out, in a brilliant talk at NotCon this year. They needed to do this to ignore the fact that the land was already occupied. "To the same end, internet settlers choose to ignore the historical and sociological facts of how the internet is run, and who can't get on to it and why, and the mechanisms used online to divide people." Gated communities substitute group for social, and "cease to question the macro institutions and systems around them." The gated communities have already gone up, on the internet. One of its founding engineers, Karl Auerbach told your reporter earlier this year that physically, as well as sociologically, "The internet is balkanizing. Communities of trust are forming in which traffic is accepted only from known friends." Remind you of anything? What this leads to is a false sense of reality. Howard Dean supporters had a tremendous disappointment when man and message failed to resonate in Meatspace. The noise of online participation isn't a very reliable indicator of what people are really thinking or doing. "Everyone I know voted Democrat," people asked yesterday "How could this happen?" In fact, voter turnout rose little in prosperous areas with high broadband penetration, but dramatically in areas where broadband penetration was lowest: up over ten per cent in Mississippi, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico. Meanwhile, the cornerstones of civic life - community and church groups - were far more effective in getting out the vote. These delivered a Republican victory. So for Doctor Gillmor to prescribe the ailing patient 'more internet' is a strange choice. For him to advocate abandoning the US left's organizational vehicle (with one current useless owner, but a proven track record of some moderate success, if you look at the log book) makes senses only if, like Dan, you don't think think the left should have an effective vehicle at all. (He wants a "radical center", remember . On being asked to abandon the project, progressives might be tempted to echo Gandhi, who when asked what he thought of western civilization, replied "I think it would be a good idea!" Giving up barely after we've started, on a center ground defined by others, or by nothing but technology, isn't an adequate replacement. For some people, technology is the answer, no matter what the question may be. But Gillmor's reasons for wanting a new net party are rather like, to paraphrase Kennedy, asking not "what can the machines do for me?" but asking "what can I do for the machines?" . -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 06:18:35 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:18:35 -0500 Subject: How organized religion, not net religion, won it for Bush Message-ID: The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT How organized religion, not net religion, won it for Bush By Ashlee Vance in Chicago (ashlee.vance at theregister.co.uk) Published Friday 5th November 2004 17:21 GMT Election 2004 Technophobes and luddites won the election for George W Bush in 2004, not technology-toting bloggers, by turning out the vote. The giant, self-congratulatory humpfest that is the blogger nation really didn't do much at all for the Democrats, despite Joe Trippi telling anyone who'll listen that the internet transformed politics. For voter turn-out was markedly higher in the states with the lowest broadband penetration. Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and California have the highest broadband penetration and all went to Kerry. Meanwhile, Mississippi, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico have the lowest penetration and all went to Bush. But the rise in votes was proportionately higher in states where the internet doesn't reach so many people. In blogless Mississippi, Bush received 666,000 votes in 2004 compared to 549,000 in 2000. That's more than a 20 per cent increase in votes. (Somehow we doubt that P. Diddy threatening youngsters in Mississippi to "Vote or Die" did much to inspire youth turnout.) Kerry picked up 440,000 in Mississippi compared to Gore's 400,000 votes - about a 10 per cent difference. What about a battleground, internet-wary state like New Mexico? The Land of Enchantment chucked 370,000 votes Bush's way in 2004 compared to 286,000 in 2000, when Bush lost the state. Kerry picked up 362,000 compared to Gore's 286,000. These numbers prove little other than that voting totals increased handily and always in Bush's favor in states largely considered lacking in IT but strong in Jesus. In broadband rich Connecticut, Kerry picked up 848,000 votes compared to Gore's 796,000. That's close to a 6 per cent rise. Bush earned 687,000 votes in 2004 compared to 546,000 in 2000. That's a handy 26 per cent gain. In New Jersey, the story is similar. Kerry pulled in 1.8m votes compared to Gore's 1.75m. Bush, however, nabbed 1.6m votes in 2004 versus 1.3m in 2000. With all those statistics out of the way, we're left with one conclusion. A year ago we were told (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/14/one_blogger_is_worth_ten/) that One Blogger is Worth Ten Votes. In reality, however, it may be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for bloggers to deliver you the election. This is the most obvious and frivolous takeaway from this year's election/revival. For months, the internet was buzzed by so-called citizen journalists - otherwise known as message board tools - who convinced each other that they were making a difference. They often analyzed their own convincing and then concluded that they were indeed right. Then W. won and did so by a larger margin than in 2000. But has anyone told Joe Trippi? A long strange Trippi "What has been amazing this year is the creativity of Generation E's members to spur and engage more of its generation to become involved and make a difference," Trippi claims in his blog. And later on, (http://www.joetrippi.com/node/view/753) he writes - "Young Americans are awake like never before and studies show the earlier a voter becomes an active voter the more likely they are to be active voters throughout their life. Politicians beware. A generational giant has been awakened." There are so many things wrong with this, and with Trippi himself, that it's hard to know where to begin. Let's at least start by looking at what the droopy god of blog scum was trying to explain. Trippi questions the numerous analysts who don't believe the youth vote was all that spectacular this election. There were more young voters, but there were more voters period as a result of population increases and shared hatred. Trippi tells us that the pundits are missing the point. Close to 10 per cent more young voters showed up this time around, the youngsters "were especially active in battleground states," and many voted with absentee ballots, meaning they were missed by exit polls. If, however, more young people did show up, they weren't terribly impressive. All week long, Joe Trippi dangled his jowls on MSNBC, on the basis of an unsuccessful campaign, and we seem to remember (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/28/dean_campaign_waves_net_guru/), for getting himself sacked after boosting his favorite DRM company while getting the dumb Doc to advocate TCPA: the lock-down computing Microsoft wants to build into Windows to stop you sharing music. Again and again, he promised that the internet and bloggers would bring out the youth vote. NPR gladly repeated this almost every day. And then, like Zogby, he stuck to his promises despite so much evidence to the contrary. Again and again, he told America that Kerry had pulled in eight times as much money as Bush online. The perky MSNBC drones next to him guffawed at the rich evidence of web success. The blogger army fell right into line behind Trippi. It told itself how awful W was. It told itself how much "it" matters - how it showed those swift boat veterans a thing or two. How the internet is freedom and how rapid communication is "pretty awesome," as our president might say. "I've written a lot in my "Trippi's Take" columns about how the Internet empowers the bottom, and how that empowerment energizes citizen involvement that can create real change in an otherwise top-down world," Trippi again writes. Trippi isn't the only one to blame. All the blogging believers are at fault. Even if Jesus set up a blogging cafe in the center of Rockport, Texas and extolled the virtues of a woman's right to choose while snapping pictures of gay weddings with his Nokia, it would have made no difference to this election. All of the bloggers would have told themselves about the miracle, while Bobby and Bobby Sue went right along with their business. The longer the Democrats pretend that their vacuum of righteousness is actually reaching the public at large, helped by NPR, the more trouble they will be in. Be it an internet wasteland like New Mexico or fat pipe rich Connecticut, it doesn't matter. George W. Bush kicked your blogging ass. Now internet zombies need to take lessons from those Dems that actually got out and participated in the world. Most of the evangelicals in Alabama certainly weren't reading georgeisthebest.typepad.com to summon up their inspiration to vote. No, they had a fearless leader screaming at them about fear and impending doom. If the Democrats want to make some gains over the next four years, they'd be well suited to get a message with some substance and weight instead hoping that empty technology will somehow save them. . -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 06:36:27 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:36:27 -0500 Subject: Dimpled Chips Message-ID: The Harvard Crimson Online :: Print Article Originally published on Monday, November 08, 2004 in the Opinion section of The Harvard Crimson. Dimpled Chips By MATTHEW A. GLINE MATTHEW A. GLINE It seems perfectly reasonable that election officials in Palm Beach County, Fla. would have wanted a change in their voting equipment after the 2000 election. And touchscreen voting machines seemed like an obvious choice: Confusing butterfly ballots that had made the state a national laughing-stock were replaced by clear, well-labeled, brightly colored buttons; the machines were backed by the latest developments in counting technology (a field which has, somewhat counter-intuitively, apparently seen a fair bit of action in recent years); and most importantly of all, the nearest Chad would now be the one in North Africa. What the election officials were probably not expecting, however, was the experience of one particular Palm Springs voter, who after patiently tapping through screen after screen of national and local officials fulfilling her civic duty was presented with an unsatisfying message of all too familiar a form: "Vote save error #1," the machine said, "use back-up voting procedure." Voteprotect.org is a website run by a handful of nonprofit organizations including VerifiedVoting.org and the Electronic Frontier Foundation which collected and organized reports of voting irregularities during last Tuesday's election. A cursory look at their data on problems related to the voting machines themselves reveals some interesting trends. The entire state of Massachusetts, where votes are recorded in large part by older optical scanning equipment, reported a total of 7 such incidents out of nearly 3 million ballots-one for every 500,000 or so votes cast. Palm Beach County had 27 machine related incidents out of their 550,000 votes-each voter there was roughly three times more likely to report trouble with their equipment than a voter was here. These incidents ran the severity gamut. In Georgia, where all voting is done on touchscreen machines, voters complained of long lines due to malfunctioning machines or machines with dead batteries. There were complaints of slow machines, and machines which at first refused to accept the "smart cards" each voter used to identify themselves. Some machines crashed or went blank while they were being used. Some machines, however, had bigger issues: "Voter's machine defaulted to Republican candidate each time she voted for a Democrat," one report from Cobb County, Georgia reads. "She told the precinct supervisor about the problem. It continued to happen 7 times." Similar incidents occurred in reasonably large numbers-some voters tried to push a button for Kerry or Bush and found that the X would appear next to the name of the other candidate. These problems were probably not due to a vast right-wing conspiracy in the voting machine industry. (Though it's not entirely clear that such a conspiracy doesn't exist-a board member of Diebold Election Systems, the company which makes most of the touchscreen voting systems that have been deployed, did at one point guarantee he would deliver Ohio to Bush in 2004. The promise sounds even more ominous in hindsight.) Rather, most of the issues surrounded poor "calibration" of the touchscreen inputs-the machines would register taps on one part of the screen as if they had been taps at some slightly different point. There were technicians on hand who could recalibrate the machines, and this tended to fix the problems for subsequent voters. Still, as a result these machines relied on voters' being sufficiently astute to notice when the confirmation said something different than what they had chosen, and sufficiently persistent to duke it out with the machines and complain to overworked officials when things went wrong. And for all the effort on the part of Florida officials to escape "close calls" due to fuzzy voting tools, these errors sound a lot like the dimpled chads they endeavored to replace. Or they would, were it not for one more disquieting feature of most touchscreen voting equipment deployed in this election. Senator Kerry graciously conceded on Wednesday morning. But had he decided to fight it out and asked for hand recounts, it's not clear what this would mean with respect to the new machines: They produce no printed receipt. In fact, they leave no paper trail at all. A lawsuit fought out in the Florida court system over the past six months tried to change this fact, but election officials have ultimately refused to deploy such equipment, calling it a frivolous expense. I don't mean to doubt that President Bush won this election fairly, and I don't think touchscreen voting machines, for all their irregularities, tipped any balances. They even carried some ancillary benefits: Disabled persons, the blind in particular, were able to vote unassisted in a presidential election in large numbers for the first time in American history. Still, we need to be able to trust the machines we use to vote. This doesn't mean we need to understand how they work-no one should have to know that their voting machine employs strong cryptography to keep their votes safe. It does, however, mean that in our fleeting interaction with the machines, we have to be made confident they're doing what they're supposed to do. We don't, for the most part, trust our computers. We save often, we're told to run virus-scanning software-and still, we hear stories about lost theses and long treks in the snow to find working printers. But I think it's quite clear at this point that while it takes a few days (and maybe a letter grade or two hit) to rewrite a history paper, it can take years to recover from a presidential election. Matthew A. Gline '06 is a physics concentrator in Quincy House. His column appears on alternate Mondays. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 06:38:13 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:38:13 -0500 Subject: Atlanta will be test site for health card Message-ID: MSNBC.com Atlanta will be test site for health card Transaction titan First Data will put credit-card machines in doctors' offices By Justin Rubner Atlanta Business Chronicle Updated: 7:00 p.m. ET Nov. 7, 2004 One of the nation's leading money movers now wants to move your medical information. Denver-based First Data Corp. has picked Atlanta as the first city to test a beefed-up credit-card machine it hopes will do nothing short of revolutionize the health-care industry. The financial transaction titan (NYSE: FDC) plans to start the pilot in January after completing several rounds of focus-group studies here during the next couple of months. The machine eventually would allow a doctor to find out everything about a patient's health benefits -- from claims status to eligibility to co-pay specifics -- with a swipe of a card. The information could then be printed out of the terminal, much like a credit-card receipt. Currently, a doctor or assistant has to photocopy a patient's insurance card and then call the patient's insurance company for specific information, check each insurance provider's Web site for more general information, or flat-out guess. "While the patient is still in care, we can immediately say how much the doctor needs to collect from the patient and the insurance company," said Beverly Kennedy, president of First Data's health-care division. Many in the health-care industry see an automated, nationwide system to process payments and transfer medical records as long overdue. For one, there's the mountain of paper records associated with the current way of doing business. Second, there's more complex government regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Adding to the complexity are increasingly complex health-care plans. Then, the costs of medical administration itself also are rising. Kennedy said $275 billion is spent each year on such administrative costs. Eventually, the hope is, an automated system would reduce such expenses. First Data wouldn't be the first player to attempt such an ambitious project. There is a program in Wyoming, North Dakota and Nevada that uses "smart cards" to store medical records, according to published reports. In addition, First Data competitor HealthTransaction Network Corp. is pushing insurance companies to issue debit cards that would be linked to medical spending accounts. But an inclusive nationwide system has been hard to come by, primarily because of the high number of small, loosely connected doctors' offices. Real-time intelligence First Data's machine, manufactured by Phoenix-based Hypercom Corp. (NYSE: HYC), will have smart-chip technology as well as the familiar magnetic strips. Such chips, which are not being tested in the pilot, allow a greater amount of information to be passed through and allow that information to be stored. There are privacy concerns that need to be ironed out. However, when policy intersects with technology, the terminals will be ready with the chips, which already have been used in Europe, Kennedy said. Insurance companies participating in the program will give their customers special cards to be used at participating health-care facilities. One of the state's biggest insurance companies, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia Inc., could be one such participant. Spokesman Charlie Harman said the company is in talks with First Data but declined to give specifics, saying it was too "proprietary" in nature. "This is an important concept," Harman said. "We need to marry technology to the health-care system." Harman said Blue Cross Blue Shield already is on the cutting edge of technology; for example, it is actively involved with a system that allows physicians to send prescriptions to pharmacists electronically. Some hospitals also are involved with "e-prescribing," including Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. To make it seemingly risk-free for doctors, First Data will give the terminals away, Kennedy said. But that doesn't mean the company won't make money -- First Data collects transaction fees, as it owns the network the information travels over. First Data, Western Union Financial Services Inc.'s parent company, processes all sorts of financial transactions over its network. The company provides electronic commerce and payment services for approximately 3.1 million merchant locations, 1,400 card issuers and millions of consumers. The terminals will plug into the wall just like the current generation of credit-card terminals and will be easy to use, Kennedy said. "It's got to be 'simple-stupid,' " Kennedy said. "It's got to be intuitive." Initially, the terminals will be tested in medical doctors' offices and will offer only eligibility data. The doctors have not yet been chosen. Eventually, Kennedy said, officials plan to expand the program nationally to opticians and dentists and it would offer a complete suite of medical information -- referrals, authorization, claims status. The "light at the end of the tunnel" would be for the program to offer real-time claims adjudication. Kennedy said Atlanta was a clear choice for the pilot primarily due to its size and diverse mix of insurance companies and government programs. The company wanted a large player -- like Blue Cross Blue Shield -- and a good "sprinkling" of national players and small insurance companies. Another important factor is Atlanta's fairly large number of provider groups, or administrative offices that run several doctors' offices. So far, tests have gone smoothly, the company says. "They absolutely love this," Kennedy said. "They keep asking when they can get their own terminals." ) 2004 Atlanta Business Chronicle -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 06:41:14 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:41:14 -0500 Subject: [ISN] E-gold Tracks Cisco Code Thief Message-ID: --- begin forwarded text From chuckw at quantumlinux.com Mon Nov 8 09:41:16 2004 From: chuckw at quantumlinux.com (Chuck Wolber) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:41:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: %< SNIP %< > More disturbing still for liberal Democrats is that George W. Bush is > the first Republican Southerner ever elected to the presidency, another > indicator that a majority of the citizenry no longer finds conservatism > and Texas such a scary mix. *SIGH* Is it really so hard for people to remember that George W. Bush was born and educated in Massachusetts? John F. Kerry is more southerner than Bush. -Chuck -- http://www.quantumlinux.com Quantum Linux Laboratories, LLC. ACCELERATING Business with Open Technology "The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." - FDR From seberino at spawar.navy.mil Mon Nov 8 09:41:48 2004 From: seberino at spawar.navy.mil (seberino at spawar.navy.mil) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:41:48 -0800 Subject: [p2p-hackers] MixMinion vs. onion routing & GNUnet question Message-ID: > These may be naive questions (I don't know GNUnet too well), but > hopefully I am about to learn something: GNUnet tries to achieve at > least three goals at the same time that are not perfectly understood > and should rather be treated individually: > > - anonymity > - censor resistance > - high-performance document distribution Performance is a secondary goal to the first 2 in GNUnet. The first 2 are related so I'm not sure how or why they need to be treated separately. > Also, don't the shortcomings of mix networks also apply to Freenet- / > GNUnet-style anonymization schemes? > I suspect that no matter what (existing) adversary > model you pick, plugging a good mix network into your design on the > transport layer gives you the highest anonymity possible. I don't know how GNUnet's architecture compares to mix networks. I *do* know that GNUnet attempts to protect against traffic analysis. If you think mix networks are better, they better have good protection against traffic analysis. Can you point us to any good URLs or papers on how mix networks protect against traffic analysis? Chris _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers at zgp.org http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers _______________________________________________ Here is a web page listing P2P Conferences: http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 06:43:07 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:43:07 -0500 Subject: [ISN] Velva Klaessy, government code breaker, dies at 88 Message-ID: --- begin forwarded text From nobody at dizum.com Mon Nov 8 00:50:06 2004 From: nobody at dizum.com (Nomen Nescio) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:50:06 +0100 (CET) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth Message-ID: <11333f79a0677bc8c4e80bf3c425a4a1@dizum.com> J.A. Terranson schrieb: > This election *proves* that at least half the electorate, about 60 > million people, are just Useless Eaters, who should be eagerly > awaiting their Trip Up The Chimneys. Wow! A Tim May copycat! (Both the 'useless eaters' and the 'chimney'!) From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Mon Nov 8 06:58:34 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 09:58:34 -0500 Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: Oh, I assumed that this verification 'layer' was disjoint from the e$ layer. In other words, you might have a 3rd party e$ issuer, but after that they shouldn't be necessary....or, there's a different 3rd party for the verification process. I think that's reasonable, but of course one could argue "what's the point if you already need a 3rd party for the e$". But I think that's a disjoint set of issues. -TD >From: Ben Laurie >To: Tyler Durden >CC: chris.kuethe at gmail.com, cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Your source code, for sale >Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 11:50:28 +0000 > >Tyler Durden wrote: >> >>>What if I block the outbound "release the money" message after I >>>unbundle the images. Sure, I've already committed my money, but you >>>can't get to it. In effect I've just ripped you off, because I have >>>usable product and you don't have usable money. >> >> >>Well, yes, but this would be a very significant step forward from the >>current situation. As t-->infinity the vast majority of non-payments are >>going to be for the purpose of greed. If the payment is already 'gone', >>then you need a whole different set of motives for wanting to screw >>somebody even if you get nothing out of it. So in other words, you have at >>least solved the payment problem "to the first order", with no 3rd party. >>With fancier mechanisms I would think you can solve it to 2nd order too. > >How do you make the payment already "gone" without using a third party? _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com Mon Nov 8 07:09:41 2004 From: kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com (John Kelsey) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:09:41 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth Message-ID: <25961287.1099926581610.JavaMail.root@grover.psp.pas.earthlink.net> >From: Eric Cordian >Sent: Nov 6, 2004 5:57 PM >To: cypherpunks at minder.net >Subject: Re: The Values-Vote Myth ... >Also, voting is in some sense political manipulation to blame the population for the >actions of their government. Everyone who votes is a co-conspirator, and the >argument is made that those who don't vote have no right to dissent. Yep, I always get a kick out of this line. Alice says "if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about the outcome." Bob says "if you don't volunteer for a campaign, man the phone banks, go door to door, and give till it hurts, you have no right to complain about the outcome." Carol says "If you don't stockpile weapons, organize into cells, and run a campaign of terror bombing and assassination, you have no right to complain about the outcome." Why is one of these people more obviously right than the others? [I know you weren't agreeing with the quoted statement either.] In practice, Alice's strategy has almost no impact on the result--nothing I did as a Maryland voter could have given Bush fewer electoral votes than he already got, and that's true almost everywhere for an individual voter. This is especially true if you're an individual voter whose major issues are just not very important to most other voters. Kerry spent essentially no time talking about the creepy implications of the Jose Padilla case (isn't he still being held incommunicado, pending filing in the right district?), or the US government's use of torture in the war on terror despite treaties and the basic obligations of civilized people not to do that crap. I see little indication that Kerry would have disclaimed the power to do those things, had the vote swung a couple percentage points the other way. Bob's strategy has more going for it, but it comes down to a tradeoff between alternate uses of your time. You could devote your time to the Bush or Kerry or Badnarik campaigns, or you could improve your ability to survive whatever ugliness may come in other ways--maybe by making more money and banking it against future problems, or improving your standing in your field, so you're likely to be employable even in a massive post-terror-attack recession. Maybe just spending quality time with your wife and kids, on the theory that the bad guys may manage to vaporize you tomorrow whichever clown gets elected Bozo-in-Chief. Carol's strategy seems doomed to fail to me--look how much damage has been done to the pro-life movement by the very small number of wackos willing to shoot abortion doctors and bomb clinics. I'm always amazed at the revolutionary talk from people on this list, as though libertarian/anarchocapitalist ideas weren't an almost invisibly small minority in the US, as though some kind of unrest leading to a civil war would lead anywhere any of us would like. (Is it the secular police state that comes out on top, or the religious police state?) >Eric Michael Cordian 0+ --John From paul at paulbaranowski.org Mon Nov 8 07:20:53 2004 From: paul at paulbaranowski.org (Paul Baranowski) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 10:20:53 -0500 Subject: [p2p-hackers] Anti-censorship Proxy Networks (without the HTML this time - sorry!) Message-ID: First I want to thank everyone for posting such good papers on this mailing list - it has given me lots of good reading material! Now I have a chance to give back to the community...I've been researching the problem of web censorship and how to design a system to get around it. Initially I wanted to build a P2P mixnet so that the users would also have anonymity. It turns out that due to various attacks that it isnt possible to build a "totally decentralized" P2P network - instead it looks more like a star where one server manages many proxy nodes. This is one example where p2p just isnt possible (I know, blasphemy on this mailing list!). Zooko encouraged me to write down my findings, and this is what I came up with: Not Too Few, Not Too Many: Enforcing Minimum Network Knowledge In Distributed Systems http://www.peek-a-booty.org/pbhtml/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid= 12 Comments are welcome. Abstract: Some distributed systems require that each node know as few other nodes as possible while still maintaining connectivity to the system. We define this state as "minimum network knowledge". In particular, this is a requirement for Internet censorship circumvention systems. We describe the constraints on such systems: 1) the Sybil attack, 2) the man-in-the-middle attack, and 3) the spidering attack. The resulting design requirements are thus: 1) An address receiver must discover addresses such that the network Node Arrival Rate <= Node Discovery Rate <= Node Departure Rate, 2) There must be a single centralized trusted address provider, 3) The address provider must uniquely identify address receivers, and 4) The discovery mechanism must involve reverse Turing tests (A.K.A. CAPTCHAs). The "minimum network knowledge" requirement also puts limits on the type of routing the network can perform. We describe a new attack, called the Boomerang attack, where it is possible to discover all the nodes in a network if the network uses mixnet routing. Two other well-known attacks limit the types of routing mechanisms: the distributed denial-of-service attack and the untraceable cracker attack. We describe three routing mechanisms that fit within the constraints: single, double, and triple-hop routing. Single-hop is a basic proxy setup, double-hop routing protects the user's data from snooping proxies, and triple hop hides proxy addresses from trusted exit nodes. _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers at zgp.org http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers _______________________________________________ Here is a web page listing P2P Conferences: http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com Mon Nov 8 07:28:33 2004 From: kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com (John Kelsey) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:28:33 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: The Values-Vote Myth Message-ID: <23177925.1099927714999.JavaMail.root@grover.psp.pas.earthlink.net> >From: "J.A. Terranson" >Sent: Nov 6, 2004 5:07 PM >To: Tyler Durden >Cc: rah at shipwright.com, cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: RE: The Values-Vote Myth >On Sat, 6 Nov 2004, Tyler Durden wrote: ... >> So: A 'moral values' question for Cypherpunks. Does this election indict the >> American people as being complicit in the crime known as "Operation >> Freedom"? (I notice everyone forgot about that name.) >Complicit? Thats *technically* correct, but not nearly strong enough. Similarly, if I hold some stock in Exxon, am I complicit in every crime done by the management of Exxon? How does this change if I'm a child whose trust fund contains the stock? Or if I hold a mutual fund I inherited with a little Exxon stock, which can be sold off only if I'm willing to move thousands of miles from my home, learn a new language, uproot my family, etc.? Is there any outcome of the election that would have made it immoral to attack Americans? (Certainly not electing Kerry, who planned to continue holding down Iraq for the forseeable future, though he correctly stated that invading it was a mistake in the first place.) And if we accept this kind of collective guilt logic, why is, say, flattening Fallujah to make an example for the rest of Iraq, wrong? > -TD >J.A. Terranson --John From hal at finney.org Mon Nov 8 10:51:24 2004 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:51:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: <20041108185124.9125057E2A@finney.org> Ben Laurie writes: > How do you make the payment already "gone" without using a third party? Of course there has to be a third party in the form of the currency issuer. If it is someone like e-gold, they could do as I suggested and add a feature where the buyer could transfer funds irrevocably into an escrow account which would be jointly controlled by the buyer and the seller. This way the payment is already "gone" from the POV of the buyer and if the seller completes the transaction, the buyer has less incentive to cheat him. In the case of an ecash mint, a simple method would be for the seller to give the buyer a proto-coin, that is, the value to be signed at the mint, but in blinded form. The buyer could take this to the mint and pay to get it signed. The resulting value is no good to the buyer because he doesn't know the blinding factors, so from his POV the money (he paid to get it signed) is already "gone". He can prove to the seller that he did it by using the Guillou-Quisquater protocol to prove in ZK that he knows the mint's signature on the value the seller gave him. The seller thereby knows that the buyer's costs are sunk, and so the seller is motivated to complete the transaction. The buyer has nothing to lose and might as well pay the seller by giving him the signed value from the mint, which the seller can unblind and (provably, verifiably) be able to deposit. Hal From fis at wiwi.hu-berlin.de Mon Nov 8 02:14:49 2004 From: fis at wiwi.hu-berlin.de (fis at wiwi.hu-berlin.de) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:14:49 +0100 Subject: [p2p-hackers] MixMinion vs. onion routing & GNUnet question Message-ID: seberino at spawar.navy.mil writes: > From: seberino at spawar.navy.mil > Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:24:14 -0800 > Subject: [p2p-hackers] MixMinion vs. onion routing & GNUnet question > [...] > GNUnet seems like a very good project. Probably the > best I've seen. It is a modular framework so pieces can be > borrowed and built upon at many levels. These may be naive questions (I don't know GNUnet too well), but hopefully I am about to learn something: GNUnet tries to achieve at least three goals at the same time that are not perfectly understood and should rather be treated individually: - anonymity - censor resistance - high-performance document distribution What makes you believe the GNUnet-solution for any of these aims can be factored out and used somewhere else? Also, don't the shortcomings of mix networks also apply to Freenet- / GNUnet-style anonymization schemes? In Freenet (at least in some ancient version that I once had a closer look at), I know security is even worse (though still not too bad in my eyes), because the packets don't all travel well-specified mix paths but take shortcuts. To put it more clearly: A network has "perfect anonymity" if any peer in that network can send and receive (variants: a - send only; b - receive only) packets without the contents of the packets being associated with its IP address by the adversary, and it has "high anonymity" if it has perfect anonymity in every transaction with high probability. Then I suspect that no matter what (existing) adversary model you pick, plugging a good mix network into your design on the transport layer gives you the highest anonymity possible. (And at a very good price, too: You can throw more resources at other design requirements, you get more mature anonymity technology, and you can profit from improvements in the field without changing your design at all.) Of course I'd need to define "good mix network" now. But perhaps somebody can already counter or confirm this as is? -matthias _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers at zgp.org http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers _______________________________________________ Here is a web page listing P2P Conferences: http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 8 02:16:03 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:16:03 +0100 Subject: [p2p-hackers] MixMinion vs. onion routing & GNUnet question (fwd from fis@wiwi.hu-berlin.de) Message-ID: <20041108101603.GE1457@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from fis at wiwi.hu-berlin.de ----- From ben at algroup.co.uk Mon Nov 8 03:50:28 2004 From: ben at algroup.co.uk (Ben Laurie) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 11:50:28 +0000 Subject: Your source code, for sale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418F5D84.5060100@algroup.co.uk> Tyler Durden wrote: > >> What if I block the outbound "release the money" message after I >> unbundle the images. Sure, I've already committed my money, but you >> can't get to it. In effect I've just ripped you off, because I have >> usable product and you don't have usable money. > > > Well, yes, but this would be a very significant step forward from the > current situation. As t-->infinity the vast majority of non-payments are > going to be for the purpose of greed. If the payment is already 'gone', > then you need a whole different set of motives for wanting to screw > somebody even if you get nothing out of it. So in other words, you have > at least solved the payment problem "to the first order", with no 3rd > party. With fancier mechanisms I would think you can solve it to 2nd > order too. How do you make the payment already "gone" without using a third party? From psilo at spunge.org Sun Nov 7 16:50:51 2004 From: psilo at spunge.org (Ben) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:50:51 +1100 Subject: [Full-Disclosure] Blackbox: Elections fraud in 2004 In-Reply-To: <20041107160555.Q67091@ubzr.zsa.bet> Message-ID: <200411080050.iA80oqCn022939@sys-s02.qmnsw> See also. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm > -----Original Message----- > From: J.A. Terranson [mailto:measl at mfn.org] > Sent: Monday, 8 November 2004 9:09 AM > To: antisocial at mfn.org > Cc: full-disclosure at lists.netsys.com; cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net > Subject: [Full-Disclosure] Blackbox: Elections fraud in 2004 > > > http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ > > BREAKING -- SUNDAY Nov. 7 2004: Freedom of Information requests at > http://www.blackboxvoting.org have unearthed two Ciber certification > reports indicating that security and tamperability was NOT TESTED and that > several state elections directors, a secretary of state, and computer > consultant Dr. Britain Williams signed off on the report anyway, > certifying it. > > Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 > election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard > evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside > information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic > voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We > are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red > flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in > the most massive Freedom of Information action in history. > > ----------------------------------------------- > > SUNDAY Nov. 7 2004: We.re awaiting independent analysis on some pretty > crooked-looking elections. In the mean time, here.s something to chew on. > > Your local elections officials trusted a group called NASED -- the > National Association of State Election Directors -- to certify that your > voting system is safe. > > This trust was breached. > > NASED certified the systems based on the recommendation of an .Independent > Testing Authority. (ITA). > > What no one told local officials was that the ITA did not test for > security (and NASED didn.t seem to mind). > > The ITA reports are considered so secret that even the California > Secretary of State.s office had trouble getting its hands on one. The ITA > refused to answer any questions about what it does. Imagine our surprise > when, due to Freedom of Information requests, a couple of them showed up > in our mailbox. > > The most important test on the ITA report is called the .penetration > analysis.. This test is supposed to tell us whether anyone can break into > the system to tamper with the votes. > > .Not applicable,. wrote Shawn Southworth, of Ciber Labs, the ITA that > tested the Diebold GEMS central tabulator software. .Did not test.. > > Shawn Southworth .tested. whether every candidate on the ballot has a > name. But we were shocked to find out that, when asked the most important > question -- about vulnerable entry points -- Southworth.s report says .not > reviewed.. > > Ciber .tested.whether the manual gives a description of the voting > system. But when asked to identify methods of attack (which we think the > American voter would consider pretty important), the top-secret report > says .not applicable.. > > Ciber .tested. whether ballots comply with local regulations, but when Bev > Harris asked Shawn Southworth what he thinks about Diebold tabulators > accepting large numbers of .minus. votes, he said he didn.t mention that > in his report because .the vendors don.t like him to put anything > negative. in his report. After all, he said, he is paid by the vendors. > > Shawn Southworth didn.t do the penetration analysis, but check out what he > wrote: > > .Ciber recommends to the NASED committee that GEMS software version > 1.18.15 be certified and assigned NASED certification number > N03060011815.. > > Was this just a one-time oversight? > > Nope. It appears to be more like a habit. Here is the same Ciber > certification section for VoteHere; as you can see, the critical security > test, the .penetration analysis. was again marked .not applicable. and was > not done. > > Maybe another ITA did the penetration analysis? > > Apparently not. We discovered an even more bizarre Wyle Laboratories > report. In it, the lab admits the Sequoia voting system has problems, but > says that since they were not corrected earlier, Sequoia could continue > with the same flaws. At one point the Wyle report omits its testing > altogether, hoping the vendor will do the test. > > Computer Guys: Be your own ITA certifier. > > Here is a copy of the full Ciber report (part 1, 2, 3, 4) on GEMS 1.18.15. > Here is a zip file download for the GEMS 1.18.15 program. Here is a real > live Diebold vote database. Compare your findings against the official > testing lab and see if you agree with what Ciber says. E-mail us your > findings. > > TIPS: The password for the vote database is .password. and you should > place it in the .LocalDB. directory in the GEMS folder, which you.ll find > in .program files.. > > Who the heck is NASED? > > They are the people who certified this stuff. > > You.ve gotta ask yourself: Are they nuts? Some of them are computer > experts. Well, it seems that several of these people suddenly want to > retire, and the whole NASED voting systems board is becoming somewhat > defunct, but these are the people responsible for today's shoddy voting > systems. > > If the security of the U.S. electoral system depends on you to certify a > voting system, and you get a report that plainly states that security was > .not tested. and .not applicable. -- what would you do? > > Perhaps we should ask them. Go ahead. Let's hold them accountable for the > election we just had. (Please, e-mail us their answers) They don't make it > very easy to get their e-mail and fax information; when you find it, let > us know and we'll post it here. > > NASED VOTING SYSTEMS/ITA ACCREDITATION BOARD > > Thomas R. Wilkey, Executive Director, New York State Board of Elections > > David Elliott, (former) Asst. Director of Elections, Washington State > > James Hendrix, Executive Director, State Election Commission, South > Carolina > > Denise Lamb, Director, State Bureau of Elections, New Mexico > > Sandy Steinbach, Director of Elections, Iowa > > Donetta Davidson, Secretary of State, Colorado > > Connie Schmidt, Commissioner, Johnson County Election Commission, Kansas > > (the late) Robert Naegele, President Granite Creek Technology, Pacific > Grove, California > > Brit Williams, Professor, CSIS Dept, Kennesaw State College, Georgia > > Paul Craft, Computer Audit Analyst, Florida State Division of Elections > Florida > > Steve Freeman, Software Consultant, League City, Texas > > Jay W. Nispel, Senior Principal Engineer, Computer Sciences Corporation > Annapolis Junction, Maryland > > Yvonne Smith (Member Emeritus), Former Assistant to the Executive Director > Illinois State Board of Elections, Illinois > > Penelope Bonsall, Director, Office of Election Administration, Federal > Election Commission, Washington, D.C. > > Committee Secretariat: The Election Center, R. Doug Lewis, Executive > Director Houston, Texas, Tele: 281-293-0101 > > # # # # # > > THURSDAY Nov. 4 2004: If you are concerned about what happened Tuesday, > Nov. 2, you have found a home with our organization. Help America Audit. > > Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 > election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard > evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside > information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic > voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We > are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red > flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in > the most massive Freedom of Information action in history. > > We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have > already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of > the records. We need citizen volunteers for a number of specific actions. > We need computer security professionals willing to GO PUBLIC with formal > opinions on the evidence we provide, whether or not it involves DMCA > complications. We need funds to pay for copies of the evidence. > > TUESDAY Nov 2 2004: BREAKING NEWS: New information indicates that hackers > may have targeted the central computers that are counting our votes. > > Freedom of Information requests are not free. We need to raise $50,000 as > quickly as possible to pay for records and the fees some states charge for > them. We launched one major FOIA action last night, and have two more on > the way, pell-mell. Now is the time. If you can't donate funds, please > donate time. E-mail to join the Cleanup Crew. > > Important: Watch this 30-minute film clip > Voting without auditing. (Are we insane?) > > SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Nov 3 2004 -- Did the voting machines trump exit > polls? There.s a way to find out. > > Black Box Voting (.ORG) is conducting the largest Freedom of Information > action in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed > the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain > internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties > and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to > perform even the most rudimentary audit. > > America: We have permission to say No to unaudited voting. It is our > right. > > Among the first requests sent to counties (with all kinds of voting > systems -- optical scan, touch-screen, and punch card) is a formal records > request for internal audit logs, polling place results slips, modem > transmission logs, and computer trouble slips. > > An earlier FOIA is more sensitive, and has not been disclosed here. We > will notify you as soon as we can go public with it. > > Such a request filed in King County, Washington on Sept. 15, following the > primary election six weeks ago, uncovered an internal audit log containing > a three-hour deletion on election night; .trouble slips. revealing > suspicious modem activity; and profound problems with security, including > accidental disclosure of critically sensitive remote access information to > poll workers, office personnel, and even, in a shocking blunder, to Black > Box Voting activists. > > Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer protection group for > elections. You may view the first volley of public records requests here: > Freedom of Information requests here > > Responses from public officials will be posted in the forum, is organized > by state and county, so that any news organization or citizens group has > access to the information. Black Box Voting will assist in analysis, by > providing expertise in evaluating the records. Watch for the records > online; Black Box Voting will be posting the results as they come in. And > by the way, these are not free. The more donations we get, the more FOIAs > we are empowered to do. Time's a'wasting. > > We look forward to seeing you participate in this process. Join us in > evaluating the previously undisclosed inside information about how our > voting system works. > > Play a part in reclaiming transparency. It.s the only way. > > # # # # # > > Public Records Request - November 2, 2004 > From: Black Box Voting > To: Elections division > > Pursuant to public records law and the spirit of fair, trustworthy, > transparent elections, we request the following documents. > > We are requesting these as a nonprofit, noncommercial group acting in the > capacity of a news and consumer interest organization, and ask that if > possible, the fees be waived for this request. If this is not possible, > please let us know which records will be provided and the cost. Please > provide records in electronic form, by e-mail, if possible - > crew at blackboxvoting.org. > > We realize you are very, very busy with the elections canvass. To the > extent possible, we do ask that you expedite this request, since we are > conducting consumer audits and time is of the essence. > > We request the following records. > > Item 1. All notes, emails, memos, and other communications pertaining to > any and all problems experienced with the voting system, ballots, voter > registration, or any component of your elections process, beginning > October 12, through November 3, 2004. > > Item 2. Copies of the results slips from all polling places for the Nov. > 2, 2004 election. If you have more than one copy, we would like the copy > that is signed by your poll workers and/or election judges. > > Item 3: The internal audit log for each of your Unity, GEMS, WinEds, Hart > Intercivic or other central tabulating machine. Because different > manufacturers call this program by different names, for purposes of > clarification we mean the programs that tally the composite of votes from > all locations. > > Item 4: If you are in the special category of having Diebold equipment, or > the VTS or GEMS tabulator, we request the following additional audit logs: > > a. The transmission logs for all votes, whether sent by modem or uploaded > directly. You will find these logs in the GEMS menu under .Accuvote OS > Server. and/or .Accuvote TS Server. > > b. The .audit log. referred to in Item 3 for Diebold is found in the GEMS > menu and is called .Audit Log. > > c. All .Poster logs.. These can be found in the GEMS menu under .poster. > and also in the GEMS directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, as a text > file. Simply print this out and provide it. > > d. Also in the Data file directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, please > provide any and all logs titled .CCLog,. .PosterLog., and Pserver Log, and > any logs found within the .Download,. .Log,. .Poster. or .Results. > directories. > > e. We are also requesting the Election Night Statement of Votes Cast, as > of the time you stopped uploading polling place memory cards for Nov. 2, > 2004 election. > > Item 5: We are requesting every iteration of every interim results report, > from the time the polls close until 5 p.m. November 3. > > Item 6: If you are in the special category of counties who have modems > attached, whether or not they were used and whether or not they were > turned on, we are requesting the following: > > a. internal logs showing transmission times from each voting machine used > in a polling place > > b. The Windows Event Viewer log. You will find this in administrative > tools, Event Viewer, and within that, print a copy of each log beginning > October 12, 2004 through Nov. 3, 2004. > > Item 7: All e-mails, letters, notes, and other correspondence between any > employee of your elections division and any other person, pertaining to > your voting system, any anomalies or problems with any component of the > voting system, any written communications with vendors for any component > of your voting system, and any records pertaining to upgrades, > improvements, performance enhancement or any other changes to your voting > system, between Oct. 12, 2004 and Nov. 3, 2004. > > Item 8: So that we may efficiently clarify any questions pertaining to > your specific county, please provide letterhead for the most recent > non-confidential correspondence between your office and your county > counsel, or, in lieu of this, just e-mail us the contact information for > your county counsel. > > Because time is of the essence, if you cannot provide all items, please > provide them in increments as soon as you have them, and please notify us > by telephone (206-335-7747) or email (Bevharrismail at aol.com) as soon as > you have any portion of the above public records request available for > review. > > Thank you very much, and here.s hoping for a smooth and simple canvass > which works out perfectly for you. We very, very much appreciate your help > with this, and we do realize how stressful this election has been. > > If you need a local address, please let me know, and we will provide a > local member for this public records request. In the interest of keeping > your life simple, we thought it best to coordinate all records through one > entity so that you don.t get multiple local requests. > > # # # # # > > We now have evidence that certainly looks like altering a computerized > voting system during a real election, and it happened just six weeks ago. > > MONDAY Nov 1 2004: New information indicates that hackers may be targeting > the central computers counting our votes tomorrow. All county elections > officials who use modems to transfer votes from polling places to the > central vote-counting server should disconnect the modems now. > > There is no down side to removing the modems. Simply drive the vote > cartridges from each polling place in to the central vote-counting > location by car, instead of transmitting by modem. .Turning off. the > modems may not be sufficient. Disconnect the central vote counting server > from all modems, INCLUDING PHONE LINES, not just Internet. > > In a very large county, this will add at most one hour to the > vote-counting time, while offering significant protection from outside > intrusion. > > It appears that such an attack may already have taken place, in a primary > election 6 weeks ago in King County, Washington -- a large jurisdiction > with over one million registered voters. Documents, including internal > audit logs for the central vote-counting computer, along with modem > .trouble slips. consistent with hacker activity, show that the system may > have been hacked on Sept. 14, 2004. Three hours is now missing from the > vote-counting computer's "audit log," an automatically generated record, > similar to the black box in an airplane, which registers certain kinds of > events. > > COMPUTER FOLKS: > > Here are the details about remote access vulnerability through the modem > connecting polling place voting machines with the central vote-counting > server in each county elections office. This applies specifically to all > Diebold systems (1,000 counties and townships), and may also apply to > other vendors. The prudent course of action is to disconnect all modems, > since the downside is small and the danger is significant. > > The central servers are installed on unpatched, open Windows computers and > use RAS (Remote Access Server) to connect to the voting machines through > telephone lines. Since RAS is not adequately protected, anyone in the > world, even terrorists, who can figure out the server's phone number can > change vote totals without being detected by observers. > > The passwords in many locations are easily guessed, and the access phone > numbers can be learned through social engineering or war dialing. > > ELECTION OFFICIALS: The only way to protect tomorrow's election from this > type of attack is to disconnect the servers from the modems now. Under > some configurations, attacks by remote access are possible even if the > modem appears to be turned off. The modem lines should be physically > disconnected. > > We obtained these documents through a public records request. The video > was taken at a press conference held by the King County elections chief > Friday Oct 29. > > The audit log is a computer-generated automatic record similar to the > "black box" in an airplane, that automatically records access to the > Diebold GEMS central tabulator (unless, of course, you go into it in the > clandestine way we demonstrated on September 22 in Washington DC at the > National Press club.) > > The central tabulator audit log is an FEC-required security feature. The > kinds of things it detects are the kinds of things you might see if > someone was tampering with the votes: Opening the vote file, previewing > and/or printing interim results, altering candidate definitions (a method > that can be used to flip votes). > > Three hours is missing altogether from the Sept. 14 Washington State > primary held six weeks ago. > > Here is a copy of the GEMS audit log. > > Note that all entries from 9:52 p.m. until 1:31 a.m. are missing. > > One report that GEMS automatically puts in the audit log is the "summary > report." This is the interim results report. We obtained the actual Sept. > 14 summary reports, printed directly from the King County tabulator GEMS > program, because we went there and watched on election night and collected > these reports. These reports were also collected by party observers, > candidates, and were on the Web site for King County. > > Here are summary reports which are now missing from the audit log. > > Note the time and date stamps on the reports. Note also that they are > signed by Dean Logan, King County elections chief. We have the original > reports signed in ink on election night. > > What does all this mean? > > We know that summary reports show up in the audit log. > > There are other audit logs, like the one that tracks modem transmissions, > but this audit log tracks summary reports. > > Dean Logan held a press conference Friday morning, Oct. 29. Kathleen > Wynne, a citizen investigator for Black Box Voting, attended the press > conference and asked Dean Logan why three hours are missing from the audit > log. > > Here is a video clip > > Logan said the empty three hours is because no reports were printed. OK. > But we have summary reports from 10:34 p.m., 11:38 p.m., 12:11 a.m., 12:46 > a.m., and 1:33 p.m. These reports were during the time he said no reports > were run. Either the software malfunctioned, or audit log items were > deleted. Because remote access through the modems is possible, the system > may have been hacked, audit log deleted, without Logan realizing it. > > Perhaps there are two of this particular kind of audit log? Perhaps this > is an incomplete one? > > Bev Harris called King County elections office records employee Mary Stoa, > asking if perhaps there are any other audit logs at all. Mary Stoa called > back, reporting that according to Bill Huennikens of King County > elections, the audit log supplied to us in our public records request is > the only one and the comprehensive and complete one. > > Perhaps it is a computer glitch? > > The audit log is 168 pages long and spans 120 days, and the 3 hours just > happen to be missing during the most critical three hours on election > night. > > Diebold says altering the audit log cannot be done. Of course, we know a > chimpanzee can't get into an elections office and play with the computer, > but to demonstrate how easy it is to delete audit log entries, we taught a > chimpanzee to delete audit records using an illicit "back door" to get > into the program, Diebold told reporters it was a "magic show." Yet, > Diebold's own internal memos show they have known the audit log could be > altered since 2001! > > Here is a Diebold memo from October 2001, titled "Altering the audit log," > written by Diebold principal engineer Ken Clark: > > "King County is famous for it" [altering the audit log] > > Here is Dean Logan, telling a Channel 5 King-TV News reporter that there > were no unexpected problems with the Diebold programs. This was at the > "MBOS" central ballot counting facility in King County in the wee hours of > Sept. 15, on Election Night. > > Dean Logan on Election Night, Sept 14 2004 > > Note that he says there were no problems with modem transmission. > > When we obtained the trouble slips, in a public records request -- > documentation that indeed the modems were not working fine, we were > accidentally given the access phone number for King County. > > Were we so inclined, if we had simply kept this under our hat, we could > take control of your central server on election night from our living > room. > > Here are the trouble slips showing problems with modems. Note that King > County generously provided us with the "secret" information needed to hack > in by remote access. We did redact the specific information that gives > this information to you. > > Here are more trouble tickets. One that is a concern: "OK to format memory > card?" (This would wipe out the votes in the electronic ballot box.) > > Election officials: Disconnect those modems NOW. If you don't: You gotta > be replaced. > Reporters: Some election officials will lie to you. Show your kids what > bravery looks like. Be courageous. Report the truth. > Citizens: Please help us by joining the Cleanup Crew. For now, e-mail > crew at blackboxvoting.org to join, since our signup form has been taken out. > Candidates: Make a statement. Do not concede on Election Night. Wait until > audits and records can be examined. > > # # # # # > > HOW TO MONITOR THE CENTRAL TABULATOR: Black Box Voting developed these > guidelines to help you create an audit log, which can then be compared > with the FEC-required computer-generated audit log inside the computer. > > Yes, this is a lot of stuff, and it might feel overwhelming, but whatever > you can do -- it is very much appreciated. > > THINGS TO BRING WITH YOU > - A notebook and pen. Preferably a notebook with a sewn binding, if you > can find one. Do not take notes on a computer. > - A cell phone > - Binoculars > If you can, also bring these: > - A camera > - A small tape recorder > - A video camera, with a zoom lens if possible > > Note that some counties will require you to turn off your video camera > during the entering of passwords, a valid request. You should, however, be > able to videotape the rest. Don.t pull your camera out right away. Avoid > confrontation by leaving your video camera in the bag -- better yet, a > purse. Pull it out only when there is an event of significance. > > HUMAN FACTORS > > You can.t be effective if you make assumptions or let others intimidate > you. > - Don.t let others make you feel dumb. > - Make no assumptions about security. It might be worse than you expect. > - Don.t count on the accuracy of anything other people tell you, even if > they work for the county or the vendor. > - About party observers, techies, or lawyers: Remember that they have not > examined the actual software or setup, and they are operating on > assumptions, hearsay, or in some cases, may be trying to misdirect your > attention. > - Vendor contracts prohibit county officials from examining their own > software. Elections officials may just be repeating what someone else (the > vendor) has told them. > > YOUR ROLE AS AN OBSERVER: CREATE YOUR OWN AUDIT LOG so it can be compared > to the real audit log. > > Write down the following. For every event, write the date, time, including > minutes. > > 1. NAMES & AFFILIATIONS: Get the names of everyone there. Find out > affiliation. > > 2. WHERE ARE THE COMPUTERS: Establish the number and location of all vote > tabulation computers. They call them different things: tabulators, > servers. What you want is the computer that adds up all the votes from > everywhere in the county. > - Some counties have only one. If there are more than one, find out where > each one is. If there is more than one tabulator, ask if they are > networked together and find out if any of them are in places you can.t > observe. > > 3. SYNCHRONIZE YOUR WATCH with the central vote-tally computer. Ask > officials to tell you the time on the computer. If more than one, ask for > the time of each and the ID number of each. > > log the date and time, to the minute, in this format: > Nov 02 2004 11:25 p.m. > Nov. 03 2004 01:15 a.m. > > CREATE A LOG FOR THE FOLLOWING: > > People: Ask names and affiliations for, and log the START and STOP time > for: > > a. Who accesses the terminal (the keyboard and screen) > b. Who sits at the terminal > c. Who accesses the server (the computer the screen is hooked up to) > d. Who enters and leaves the room > > COMPUTER ACTIVITIES: Log the START and STOP time for the following events > and write down the name of the person involved: > > a. Putting disks, CDs, or any other item in the computer > b. Taking disks, CDs, or any other item out of the computer > c. Uploading disks, CDs, or any other item > d. Viewing a preview of a report > e. Putting a report on the Web, even if this is done from another computer > f. Printing a report > g. NOTE WHAT.S ON THE SCREEN: Use binoculars to view the screen. > - Note upload icons. > - Use binoculars to read and record error messages. Note the time. > - Note indicators of processes, when a status bar shows how much is left > to do > > h. PROGRAM CRASHES: > - Watch to see if the program suddenly disappears from the screen (a > program crash) or any system error message appears. If so, note the time > and other details, and see below for how to record system crashes. > - Get the date and time and note who was at the computer > - Note whether any results were being transmitted or uploaded at the time > the crash occurred. > - Did the crash take down the whole computer or did it just close the > tabulator program unexpectedly. > - Log all activities and conversations that occur just after the crash. If > have a tape recorder, leave it in your purse, now is the time to turn it > on. But keep making notes regardless of whether you have tape, and trust > your gut. What you think might be important is probably important. > > WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING YOU CAN FIND OUT ABOUT MODEMS. > > i. Note when, where, and who feeds ballot data into the computer in the > central office. Describe what they are feeding the cards into, where the > items are located, who does it, and when. > > j. DISK MANAGEMENT: > > - Note what kind of data storage device is used to move data around. You > are looking for floppy disks, CDs, USB keys (about the size of a pack of > gum). > - Note where they get the disk from originally (whether it was from the > machine, meaning it could have a program or data on it already, or out of > a package of new disks). > - Track the chain of custody: Where it is taken, and have someone watch it > when taken to any other machine, note what programs you can see on the > other machine > - Note whether (and what time) it comes back and if it is put into the > machine again. > k. Moving the results: They have to move the results somehow. Ask > questions about their procedures. > - Is someone coming and going every hour or so with paper results? > - Are they moving results to the Internet with a floppy or CD or USB key > (looks like a little piece of plastic, about the size of a piece of gum) > - If no one is leaving the machine to post the results, chances are they > are doing this at the computer, meaning they are probably hooked up to a > network or the Internet. Ask questions about the details and record what > they say, and the name of the person who says it. > l. If you see somebody open a web page or they do something that lets you > know there has been Internet access, write it down. > > m. BEHAVIORAL CUES: > > - Note whether people look worried or stressed. Log the time it begins and > the time it ends and who they are. > - A now a word about .wranglers.. Some elections offices appoint a person > -- sometimes a party observer they are chummy with -- to act as > .wranglers.. They identify any person who might ask troublesome questions, > and if an event occurs that could cause embarrassment, the appointed > wrangler then goes over to distract the observers. Really. This is an > elections procedure in some jurisdictions. They actually call it a > wrangler. > - If someone comes over and engages you in conversation, look around, and > see if officials have suddenly congregated into an office or people are > huddling over a computer. See if you can find out what you are not > supposed to see. > - Log behavior that is distracting, noting the time and person. > - Log time and people involved in other distraction events, for example: > The lights suddenly go out; a fire alarm goes off; someone spills > something, loud noises, someone knocks something over. > > RECORDS TO REQUEST: > > Each state has a public records act, but in most cases, you can get > records you ask for if you are nice. Here are important records you.ll > want: > > 1. Get a copy of each INTERIM RESULTS REPORT. Stand guard over what you > have. If someone comes in to remove or .replace one with a better copy. > hang onto the first and take the replacement, marking it. Make sure all > interim reports are time-stamped by the computer. If they aren.t, note the > exact time you see them appear. > > 2. Request the COMPUTER AUDIT LOG for Oct. 29-Nov 2 (actually, it is > important to get the printout BEFORE YOU LEAVE that night. It will only be > a few pages, and can be printed from the vote-tally program.s menu. > > 3. Ask for a copy of all the POLLING PLACE RESULTS SLIPS. These are sent > in with the results cartridges. Try to get copies before you leave that > night. If they won.t give copies to you then, put in a public records > request and ask how soon you can pick them up. > > 4. Ask for a copy of THE UPLOAD LOGS. These are on the computer and can be > printed out on election night. They list each polling place and the time > results were uploaded. > > 5. There are ADDITIONAL LOGS in the Diebold GEMS programs you can request: > From the GEMS folder .data., ask for the poster logs. There may be folders > in the GEMS .data. directory titled .download., .log., .poster. and > .results.. Ask for copies of these logs. > > 6. Here.s a report that is very long but incredibly important and > valuable. Ask if you can have the ELECTION NIGHT DETAIL REPORT -- the > precinct by precinct results as of the time all memory cards are uploaded > from all precincts. Depending on the system, they.ll call it different > things -- in Diebold, it is called the Statement of Votes Cast (SOVC) > report. > > 7. Let us know which REPORTS THEY REFUSE to give you on Election Night. We > can then put in Freedom of Information (public records) requests formally. > > Once we have your observation log, and the records you obtain on Election > Night, we can start matching up events and data to audit for anomalies. > > # # # # # > > Post information in the county and state at BlackBoxVoting.ORG. If the > site is hacked out, come back as soon as it is up and post the > information. > > Thank you, and let.s have an orderly election. > > # # # # # > > Now, there is a film crew who has been brave enough to capture what's > really going on: > > THIS IS THE ONE: Here's the film that's breaking new ground on voting > machine investigations. Includes never before seen footage and > information: > > download 30 minute preview of the upcoming feature film. > > NOTE: Please give your attention to the real film by the real > investigators: Russell Michaels, Simon Ardizzone, and Robert Carrillo > Cohen -- they are the real deal. (Someone who ran off with a portion of > the proprietary footage has been pitching a similarly named, inferior > production which is missing most of the good stuff.) By the way, we've > worked with most of the documentary producers out there, and Russell > Michaels, Simon Ardizzone and Robert Carrillo Cohen are in a class by > themselves -- In my opinion, they are the only filmmakers who have been > doing real, in-depth, long-term in-the-field investigations on this issue > -- Bev Harris. > > Remember: > > - Don't concede: Candidates, make a statement about voting without > auditing. Hold off on your concession until the canvass is done > - Gotta be replaced: If your county melts down into litigation, hold > officials accountable if they chose to ignore warnings and failed to > mitigate risks with preventive actions (like disconnecting telephone > modems). > > Note that most voting machine problems will be found between Nov. 3-12, > during the canvass, and a few weeks later, when public records requests > are obtained. > > _______________________________________________ > Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. > Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html From Euseval at aol.com Mon Nov 8 09:50:23 2004 From: Euseval at aol.com (Euseval at aol.com) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 12:50:23 -0500 Subject: [p2p-hackers] Re: anon-layer comparison Message-ID: jetiants http://www.jetiants.tk Gnu-net http://www.ovmj.org/GNUnet/ I2p http://www.i2p.net/ Tor http://freehaven.net/tor/ These may be naive questions (I don't know GNUnet too well), but > hopefully I am about to learn something: GNUnet tries to achieve at > least three goals at the same time that are not perfectly understood > and should rather be treated individually: > > - anonymity > - censor resistance > - high-performance document distribution Performance is a secondary goal to the first 2 in GNUnet. The first 2 are related so I'm not sure how or why they need to be treated separately. > Also, don't the shortcomings of mix networks also apply to Freenet- / > GNUnet-style anonymization schemes? > I suspect that no matter what (existing) adversary > model you pick, plugging a good mix network into your design on the > transport layer gives you the highest anonymity possible. I don't know how GNUnet's architecture compares to mix networks. I *do* know that GNUnet attempts to protect against traffic analysis. If you think mix networks are better, they better have good protection against traffic analysis. Can you point us to any good URLs or papers on how mix networks protect against traffic analysis? Chris _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers at zgp.org http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers _______________________________________________ Here is a web page listing P2P Conferences: http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Mon Nov 8 12:27:30 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 15:27:30 -0500 Subject: Your source code, for sale Message-ID: Well, I guess once you need a 3rd party for the e$, it's only going to make sense that the issuer offer a "value added" service like you're talking about. A 3rd party verifier is probably going to be too costly. But I'm not 100% convinced that you HAVE TO have a 3rd party verifier, but it's looking like that's what's going to make sense 99% of the time anyway. -TD >From: hal at finney.org ("Hal Finney") >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Your source code, for sale >Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:51:24 -0800 (PST) > >Ben Laurie writes: > > How do you make the payment already "gone" without using a third party? > >Of course there has to be a third party in the form of the currency >issuer. If it is someone like e-gold, they could do as I suggested and >add a feature where the buyer could transfer funds irrevocably into >an escrow account which would be jointly controlled by the buyer and >the seller. This way the payment is already "gone" from the POV of the >buyer and if the seller completes the transaction, the buyer has less >incentive to cheat him. > >In the case of an ecash mint, a simple method would be for the seller to >give the buyer a proto-coin, that is, the value to be signed at the mint, >but in blinded form. The buyer could take this to the mint and pay to >get it signed. The resulting value is no good to the buyer because he >doesn't know the blinding factors, so from his POV the money (he paid >to get it signed) is already "gone". He can prove to the seller that >he did it by using the Guillou-Quisquater protocol to prove in ZK that >he knows the mint's signature on the value the seller gave him. > >The seller thereby knows that the buyer's costs are sunk, and so the >seller is motivated to complete the transaction. The buyer has nothing >to lose and might as well pay the seller by giving him the signed value >from the mint, which the seller can unblind and (provably, verifiably) >be able to deposit. > >Hal _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Sun Nov 7 19:12:53 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 16:12:53 +1300 Subject: In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down In-Reply-To: <418DB32F.8050804@echeque.com> Message-ID: "James A. Donald" writes: >I find this very hard to believe. Post links, or give citations. Normally I'd dig up various refs, but since this topic has been beaten to death repeatedly in places like soc.history.medieval, and the debate could well go on endlessly in the manner of the standard "What would have happened if the North/South had done X?", I'll just handwave and invite you to dig up whatever sources you feel like yourself. >>(There were other problems as well, e.g. the unusually high death toll and >> removal of "ancient aristocratic lineages" was caused by English >> commoners who weren't aware of the tradition of capturing opposing >> nobles and having them ransomed back, rather than hacking them to >> pieces on the spot. > >Wrong > >French nobles were taken prisoner in the usual fashion, but executed because >the English King commanded them executed. Nobles expected to surrender to other nobles and be ransomed. Commoners didn't respect this, and almost never took prisoners. Henry's orders didn't make that much difference, at best they were a "we'll turn a blind eye" notification to his troops. When you have English commoner men-at-arms (front row) meeting French nobles (front row, hoping to nab Henry and other for- ransom nobles, and to some extent because it was unseemly to let the commoners do the fighting, although they should have learned their lesson for that at Courtrai) there's going to be a bloodbath no matter what your leader orders. For the peasants it's "get him before he gets me", not a chivalric jousting match for the landed gentry. In addition the enemy nobles had weapons and armour that was worth something, while a ransom was useless to a non-noble (if Bob the Archer did manage to captured Sir Fromage, his lord would grab him, collect the ransom, and perhaps throw Bob a penny for his troubles). (There's a lot more to it than that, but I really don't want to get into an endless debate over this. Take it to soc.history if you must, and if anyone's still interested in debating this there). Peter. From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 8 07:39:43 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:39:43 +0100 Subject: [p2p-hackers] Anti-censorship Proxy Networks (without the HTML this time - sorry!) (fwd from paul@paulbaranowski.org) Message-ID: <20041108153943.GR1457@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from Paul Baranowski ----- From chuckw at quantumlinux.com Mon Nov 8 18:13:36 2004 From: chuckw at quantumlinux.com (Chuck Wolber) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 18:13:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: > At 9:41 AM -0800 11/8/04, Chuck Wolber wrote: > >*SIGH* Is it really so hard for people to remember that George W. Bush was > >born and educated in Massachusetts? > > Give me a child until the age of 7, &cet. 'er huh? > Which he spent in Midland, TX. > > Being the son of a family of West-Texans myself, he comes by his > "bidness" honestly, as far as I'm concerned. I think a little line noise crept in here somewhere. Care to clarify? -Chuck -- http://www.quantumlinux.com Quantum Linux Laboratories, LLC. ACCELERATING Business with Open Technology "The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." - FDR From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 8 09:45:57 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 18:45:57 +0100 Subject: [p2p-hackers] MixMinion vs. onion routing & GNUnet question (fwd from seberino@spawar.navy.mil) Message-ID: <20041108174557.GX1457@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from seberino at spawar.navy.mil ----- From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Sun Nov 7 21:47:55 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 18:47:55 +1300 Subject: In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down In-Reply-To: <418F00C3.5060600@echeque.com> Message-ID: "James A. Donald" writes: >Peter Gutmann wrote: >>Nobles expected to surrender to other nobles and be ransomed. >>Commoners didn't respect this, and almost never took prisoners. >>Henry's orders didn't make that much difference, at best they were a >>"we'll turn a blind eye" notification to his troops. > >The english army was well disciplined, and in battle did what it what it was >told. About half way through the battle of Agincourt, King Henry decided he >could not afford so many troops guarding so many prisoners, and told them >kill-em-all. Nobility had nothing to do with it. It did not matter who >took you prisoner. As I said in my previous message, this is the topic of endless debate, and in particular the high death toll among the nobles could arisen from any number of causes. For example at Crecy the French king (Philip the something'th) had the oriflamme (French war banner indicating that no prisoners could be taken) displayed because he was worried that the gold-rush for enemy nobles to ransom would screw up the French battle order, resulting in huge losses when the French ended up at the losing end. There's speculation that they did the same thing at Agincourt, because no French chronicler of the time raised even a murmur about the killings. So something like that could have been just as much the cause as any order given by Henry V to dispatch leftovers after the battle (for example the mass slaughter of the first and second lines ("battles") of French, bogged down in mud (the battle was fought in a rain- soaked freshly-ploughed field), by English commoners occurred very early in the battle, while the killing of stragglers under Henry's orders didn't happen until the following day, or the very end of the battle for prisoners). If you really want to continue this, please do it in soc.history medieval, there are already thousand-odd-message threads going over every nuance of this. Peter. From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 8 10:09:47 2004 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 19:09:47 +0100 Subject: [p2p-hackers] Re: anon-layer comparison (fwd from Euseval@aol.com) Message-ID: <20041108180947.GY1457@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from Euseval at aol.com ----- From chuckw at quantumlinux.com Mon Nov 8 19:11:04 2004 From: chuckw at quantumlinux.com (Chuck Wolber) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 19:11:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: > At 6:13 PM -0800 11/8/04, Chuck Wolber wrote: > >> Give me a child until the age of 7, &cet. > > > >'er huh? > > Jesuit Maxim. Or Michael Apted film premise. Take your pick. Google is > your friend. "&cet" is an HTMl element, I ass-u-me-d that some HTML garbage was injected into your message. May I assume you meant "etc." ? In that case, yes, I'm familiar with the maxim you *meant* to say. > >> Which he spent in Midland, TX. > >> > >> Being the son of a family of West-Texans myself, he comes by his > >> "bidness" honestly, as far as I'm concerned. > > > >I think a little line noise crept in here somewhere. Care to clarify? > > Yes, and, apparently, by your inability to parse something that is a > rudimentary part of modern culture, you generated it. Or perhaps it's your lack of command of the modern QWERTY keyboard... -Chuck -- http://www.quantumlinux.com Quantum Linux Laboratories, LLC. ACCELERATING Business with Open Technology "The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." - FDR From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 16:12:48 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 19:12:48 -0500 Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 9:41 AM -0800 11/8/04, Chuck Wolber wrote: >*SIGH* Is it really so hard for people to remember that George W. Bush was >born and educated in Massachusetts? Give me a child until the age of 7, &cet. Which he spent in Midland, TX. Being the son of a family of West-Texans myself, he comes by his "bidness" honestly, as far as I'm concerned. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jya at pipeline.com Mon Nov 8 20:20:59 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 20:20:59 -0800 Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: West Texas is where kids learn to fuck jackrabbits by slitting their guts to fashion a pokehole. The jacks' death kicking of the cojones is what leaves an urge in them as adults to spread the practice to the state, the nation, the world, any place to hunt gash. You thought dove hunting is what drew visitors to the state. Heh. Think of the joy of hurling inseminated rabbit guts at depleted confreres. From mv at cdc.gov Mon Nov 8 20:38:38 2004 From: mv at cdc.gov (Major Variola (ret)) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 20:38:38 -0800 Subject: CIA Comic Message-ID: <419049CE.24C2E6A3@cdc.gov> At 06:59 PM 11/7/04 -0800, John Young wrote: >Remember the CIA Comic from the late 90s? Told hilarious >inside the agency jokes that made everyone outside the >cocoon blanche and puke, sorry, Bob blew coke through >his nose. Cointelpro If you don't know what it was Then it's still happening Cointelpro http://www.covertcomic.com/CCSchool.htm From mv at cdc.gov Mon Nov 8 20:42:33 2004 From: mv at cdc.gov (Major Variola (ret)) Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 20:42:33 -0800 Subject: Collateral damage? Message-ID: <41904AB9.6BCACD9C@cdc.gov> >How does this change if I'm a child whose trust fund contains the stock? Or if I hold a >mutual fund I inherited with a little Exxon stock What part of "collateral damage" don't you understand? From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 18:35:43 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:35:43 -0500 Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 8:20 PM -0800 11/8/04, John Young wrote: >West Texas is where kids learn to fuck jackrabbits >by slitting their guts to fashion a pokehole. The jacks' >death kicking of the cojones is what leaves an urge in >them as adults to spread the practice to the state, the >nation, the world, any place to hunt gash. Spoken like someone with practice? Or maybe someone from *east* Texas? ;-) An here yew Yankees thawt all us texins are the say'm... Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 18:49:15 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:49:15 -0500 Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 6:13 PM -0800 11/8/04, Chuck Wolber wrote: >> Give me a child until the age of 7, &cet. > >'er huh? Jesuit Maxim. Or Michael Apted film premise. Take your pick. Google is your friend. >> Which he spent in Midland, TX. >> >> Being the son of a family of West-Texans myself, he comes by his >> "bidness" honestly, as far as I'm concerned. > >I think a little line noise crept in here somewhere. Care to clarify? Yes, and, apparently, by your inability to parse something that is a rudimentary part of modern culture, you generated it. ;-). Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 19:42:46 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 22:42:46 -0500 Subject: Kennedy School: Freedom, not wealth, squelches terrorist violence Message-ID: Nice to know Camelot High is good for *something*. Cheers, RAH ------- Harvard Gazette: Current Issue: November 04, 2004 Alberto Abadie: 'In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty, but ... when you look at the data, it's not there. This is true not only for events of international terrorism ... but ... also for the overall level of terrorism, both of domestic and of foreign origin.' (Staff photo Jon Chase/Harvard News Office) Freedom squelches terrorist violence KSG associate professor researches freedom-terrorism link By Alvin Powell Harvard News Office A John F. Kennedy School of Government researcher has cast doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation's level of political freedom. Associate Professor of Public Policy Alberto Abadie examined data on terrorism and variables such as wealth, political freedom, geography, and ethnic fractionalization for nations that have been targets of terrorist attacks. Abadie, whose work was published in the Kennedy School's Faculty Research Working Paper Series, included both acts of international and domestic terrorism in his analysis. Though after the 9/11 attacks most of the work in this area has focused on international terrorism, Abadie said terrorism originating within the country where the attacks occur actually makes up the bulk of terrorist acts each year. According to statistics from the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base for 2003, which Abadie cites in his analysis, there were 1,536 reports of domestic terrorism worldwide, compared with just 240 incidents of international terrorism. Before analyzing the data, Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between a nation's wealth and the level of terrorism it experiences. "In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty, but in fact when you look at the data, it's not there. This is true not only for events of international terrorism, as previous studies have shown, but perhaps more surprisingly also for the overall level of terrorism, both of domestic and of foreign origin," Abadie said. Instead, Abadie detected a peculiar relationship between the levels of political freedom a nation affords and the severity of terrorism. Though terrorism declined among nations with high levels of political freedom, it was the intermediate nations that seemed most vulnerable. Like those with much political freedom, nations at the other extreme - with tightly controlled autocratic governments - also experienced low levels of terrorism. Though his study didn't explore the reasons behind the trends he researched, Abadie said it could be that autocratic nations' tight control and repressive practices keep terrorist activities in check, while nations making the transition to more open, democratic governments - such as currently taking place in Iraq and Russia - may be politically unstable, which makes them more vulnerable. "When you go from an autocratic regime and make the transition to democracy, you may expect a temporary increase in terrorism," Abadie said. Abadie's study also found a strong connection in the data between terrorism and geographic factors, such as elevation or tropical weather. "Failure to eradicate terrorism in some areas of the world has often been attributed to geographic barriers, like mountainous terrain in Afghanistan or tropical jungle in Colombia. This study provides empirical evidence of the link between terrorism and geography," Abadie said. In Abadie's opinion, the connection between geography and terrorism is hardly surprising. "Areas of difficult access offer safe haven to terrorist groups, facilitate training, and provide funding through other illegal activities like the production and trafficking of cocaine and opiates," Abadie wrote in the paper. A native of Spain's Basque region, Abadie said he has long been interested in terrorism and related issues. His past research has explored the effect of terrorism on economic activity, using the Basque country as a case study. Abadie is turning his attention to the effect of terrorism on international capital flows. Some analysts have argued that terrorist attacks wouldn't have much of an impact on the economy, since unlike a war's widespread damage, the damage from terrorist attacks tends to be relatively small or confined to a small area. In an era of open international capital markets, however, Abadie said terrorism may have a greater chilling effect than previously thought, since even a low risk of damage from a terrorist attack may be enough to send investors looking elsewhere. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From justin-cypherpunks at soze.net Mon Nov 8 15:00:49 2004 From: justin-cypherpunks at soze.net (Justin) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 23:00:49 +0000 Subject: The Values-Vote Myth In-Reply-To: <25961287.1099926581610.JavaMail.root@grover.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <25961287.1099926581610.JavaMail.root@grover.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20041108230049.GA20235@arion.soze.net> On 2004-11-08T10:09:41-0500, John Kelsey wrote: > Kerry spent essentially no time talking about the creepy implications > of the Jose Padilla case (isn't he still being held incommunicado, > pending filing in the right district?), or the US government's use of > torture in the war on terror despite treaties and the basic > obligations of civilized people not to do that crap. Padilla is still in the naval brig in SC, I suppose. The media seems to think he's still there, or at least thought so as of mid-September. They might be trying to do to him what they did to Hamdi, who's in Saudi Arabia as of a month ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaser_Hamdi#Release http://www.mail-archive.com/conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu/thrd2.html (search for Hamdi, there are 8-10 messages about it) I don't know if Padilla has dual citizenship, so there may not be another country that would take him. Apparent citizen-less individuals (mostly citizens of other countries who won't re-accept them when the U.S. tries to deport them) end up being incarcerated indefinitely by the INS. -- The old must give way to the new, falsehood must become exposed by truth, and truth, though fought, always in the end prevails. -- L. Ron Hubbard From rah at shipwright.com Mon Nov 8 21:17:49 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 00:17:49 -0500 Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 7:11 PM -0800 11/8/04, Chuck Wolber wrote: >"&cet" is an HTMl element Wrong again. Mere hyperlatinate British public school affectation, & = et, and, um, all that... At 7:11 PM -0800 11/8/04, Chuck Wolber wrote: >> Yes, and, apparently, by your inability to parse something that is a >> rudimentary part of modern culture, you generated it. > >Or perhaps it's your lack of command of the modern QWERTY keyboard... Nope. See above, and, again, thank you for playing. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 9 05:55:03 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 08:55:03 -0500 Subject: [osint] Leftist, Islamic terrorist lawyer cites need for violence Message-ID: --- begin forwarded text To: "Bruce Tefft" Thread-Index: AcTGW926BrmmPrOpQHC2HrbnSiYYSw== From: "Bruce Tefft" Mailing-List: list osint at yahoogroups.com; contact osint-owner at yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list osint at yahoogroups.com Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 07:58:54 -0500 Subject: [osint] Leftist, Islamic terrorist lawyer cites need for violence Reply-To: osint at yahoogroups.com http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35232-2004Nov8.html Lawyer Facing Terror Charge Cites Need for Violence By Michelle Garcia Special to The Washington Post Tuesday, November 9, 2004; Page A08 A New York lawyer facing charges of supporting terrorism told a federal jury that she viewed violence as essential to dismantling institutions that perpetuate "sexism and racism." As a federal prosecutor questioned her statements and support for a "people's revolution," Lynne Stewart, 65, testified that her lifelong philosophy included fighting "entrenched ferocious capitalism that is in this country today." Lynne Stewart emphasized that she does not support terrorism. "I believe that entrenched institutions will not be changed except by violence," Stewart said. "I believe in the politics that lead to violence being exerted by people on their own behalf to effectuate change." Stewart cited the American Revolution and the struggle to end slavery as such examples but emphasized that she did not support terrorism, saying, "I do not believe in civilian deaths or wanton massacres." Federal prosecutors presented Stewart's statements in an effort to show that Stewart sought to aid a militant group. If convicted, she could face a 40-year sentence. The case centers on her role in delivering a communique from her client, blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence after a jury convicted him in 1995 of seditious conspiracy in a plot to blow up New York bridges, tunnels and landmarks. That communication, expressing the sheik's disapproval of a cease-fire between the Islamic Group and the Egyptian government, is at the heart of the government's case. Prosecutors say that by conveying the message, Stewart violated her agreement to special prison rules that restricted the sheik's communication to the public and allowed him access to his followers in the Islamic Group, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Her attorney, Michael Tigar, objected to the prosecution's focus on her beliefs, saying "everyone of us is protected by the First Amendment." U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl said Stewart's view of violence was not "irrelevant" or "straying into an impermissible area." U.S. Attorney Andrew Dember methodically recounted the events that led up to Stewart reading a handwritten statement to a Reuters reporter. Dember pointed to excerpts from a transcript from taped conversations in which Stewart referred to Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney who prosecuted Rahman, as a "devil" and showed that Stewart viewed her relationship with the government as "adversarial." At times, Stewart sparred with Dember over terminology. She took issue with his suggestion that by signing an agreement to the prison rules she had agreed with their intent. She said she viewed it as necessary to gaining access to her client. When Dember showed the jury a copy of the agreement specifying restrictions over mail, she said she understood the term to mean envelopes delivered by the Postal Service. Dember asked Stewart to explain her motivation for continuing to visit Rahman in a Minnesota prison after he had exhausted his appeals. "I think that our legal system reacts differently to people who are paid attention to," she said. "I think the worst thing is the way it treats people who are nobody." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, discuss-osint at yahoogroups.com. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor bisoldi at intellnet.org http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint at yahoogroups.com Subscribe: osint-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: osint-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: osint-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 9 06:16:26 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 09:16:26 -0500 Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 12:17 AM -0500 11/9/04, R.A. Hettinga wrote: >At 7:11 PM -0800 11/8/04, Chuck Wolber wrote: >>"&cet" is an HTMl element > >Wrong again. Mere hyperlatinate British public school affectation, & = et, >and, um, all that... It dawns on me that between Berners-Lee and Hallam-Baker, that the latter, above, had it's origin in the former? Nawwwww... Now *that's* noise... Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From justin-cypherpunks at soze.net Tue Nov 9 03:46:53 2004 From: justin-cypherpunks at soze.net (Justin) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 11:46:53 +0000 Subject: Collateral damage? In-Reply-To: <41904AB9.6BCACD9C@cdc.gov> References: <41904AB9.6BCACD9C@cdc.gov> Message-ID: <20041109114653.GA22981@arion.soze.net> On 2004-11-08T20:42:33-0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote: > > >How does this change if I'm a child whose trust fund contains the > >stock? Or if I hold a >mutual fund I inherited with a little Exxon > >stock > > What part of "collateral damage" don't you understand? Yep. When we shoot at people we think are terrorists and they turn out to be an innocent Iraqis, we're acting maliciously and we want to turn Iraq in to an American empire. When radial islamists attack us and hit U.S. citizens many of whose only connection to the government is voting biennially, it's collateral damage. -- The old must give way to the new, falsehood must become exposed by truth, and truth, though fought, always in the end prevails. -- L. Ron Hubbard From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 9 13:05:36 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:05:36 -0500 Subject: No mandate for e-voting, computer scientist says Message-ID: No mandate for e-voting, computer scientist says 11/09/04 By William Jackson, GCN Staff Despite wide use in last week's presidential election, direct-recording electronic voting still is a faulty method of casting ballots, one computer scientist says. "Paperless electronic-voting systems are completely unacceptable," said Dan Wallach, assistant professor of computer science at Rice University. Assurances about the machines' accuracy and reliability are not based on verifiable data, Wallach said today at the Computer Security Institute's annual conference in Washington. Wallach was one of a team of computer scientists who in 2003 examined source code for voting machines from Diebold Election Systems Inc. of North Canton, Ohio, and reported numerous security flaws. Cryptography implementation and access controls showed an "astonishingly naive design," he said. "As far as we know, these flaws are still there today." Diebold has defended its technology and said the computer scientists examined an outdated version of the code. Wallach countered that without access to current code for any voting machines, it's impossible to verify manufacturers' claims. The proprietary nature of the code and a lack of government standards for voting technology also make certification of the hardware and software meaningless, he said. The IT Association of America hailed the Nov. 2 election as a validation of direct-recording technology. But Wallach said sporadic problems with the systems have been reported, and a thorough analysis of Election Day procedures and results is under way. Plus, a paper ballot that can be recounted is essential to a reliable system, he said. "Probably the best voting system we have today is the optical scan system, with a precinct-based scanner," Wallach said. "It is very simple, it is accurate, and it is auditable." He suggested that a hybrid voting system that produces a verifiable paper ballot would be as reliable as optical systems and would offer convenience and accessibility for disabled voters. A number of states, including California and Nevada, have laws or legislation pending to require that voting machines produce paper ballots. Wallach said technical standards that demand transparent certification processes would go a long way toward increasing voting reliability. "I think the Common Criteria would be a good place to start," he said, referring to the set of internationally recognized standards for evaluating security technology, either against vendor claims or against a set of needs specified by a user. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 9 13:10:52 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:10:52 -0500 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks Message-ID: China's wealthy bypass the banks By Keith Bradsher The New York Times Wednesday, November 10, 2004 WENZHOU, China The Wenzhou "stir-fry" is not a dish you eat. But it is giving indigestion to Chinese regulators and could prove troublesome to many investors worldwide, from New York money managers, Pennsylvania steelworkers and Midwestern farmers to Australian miners. Here in this freewheeling city at the forefront of capitalism in China, the dish is prepared when a group of wealthy friends pool millions of dollars' worth of Chinese yuan and put them into a hot investment like Shanghai real estate, where they are stirred and flipped for a hefty profit. The friends often lend each other large amounts on the strength of a handshake and a handwritten IOU. Both sides then go to an automated teller machine or bank branch to transfer the money, which is then withdrawn from the bank. Or sometimes they do it the old-fashioned way: exchanging burlap sacks stuffed with cash. The worry for Chinese regulators is that everyone in China will start cooking the Wenzhou stir-fry and do it outside the banking system. In the last few months, borrowing and lending across the rest of China is looking more and more like what is taking place in Wenzhou. The growth of this shadow banking system poses a stiff challenge to China's state-owned banks, already burdened with bad debt, and makes it harder for the nation's leaders to steer a fast-growing economy. The problem starts with China's low interest rates. More and more families with savings have been snubbing 2 percent interest on bank deposits for the double-digit returns from lending large amounts on their own. They lend to real estate speculators or to small businesses without the political connections to obtain loans from the banks. Not only is the informal lending rate higher, but the income from that lending, because it is semilegal at best, is not taxed. For fear of shame, ostracism and the occasional threat from thugs, borrowers are more likely to pay back these loans than those from the big banks. Tao Dong, chief China economist at Credit Suisse First Boston, calculates that Chinese citizens withdrew $12 billion to $17 billion from their bank deposits in August and September. The outflow turned into a flood last month, reaching an estimated $120 billion, or more than 3 percent of all deposits at the country's financial institutions. If the bank withdrawals are not stemmed in the months ahead, Tao warned, "this potentially could be a huge risk for financial stability and even social stability." And with China now accounting for more than a quarter of the world's steel production and nearly a fifth of soybean production, as well as some of the largest initial public offerings of stock, any shaking of financial confidence here could ripple quickly through markets in the United States and elsewhere. For instance, if the steel girders now being lifted into place by hundreds of tower cranes in big cities across China are no longer needed, that would produce a worldwide glut of steel and push down prices. On Oct. 28, when China's central bank raised interest rates for one-year loans and deposits by a little more than a quarter of a percentage point, it cited a need to keep money in the banking system. Higher official rates should "reduce external cycling of credit funds," the bank said in a statement. Eswar Prasad, the chief of the China division of the International Monetary Fund, expressed concern about bank withdrawals in a speech in Hong Kong three days before the central bank acted. The main Chinese banks have fairly substantial reserves, but they need those reserves to cover huge write-offs of bad debts some day. The hub of informal lending in China is here in Wenzhou, 370 kilometers, or 230 miles, south of Shanghai. Some of China's first experiments with the free market began here in the late 1970s, and the result has been a flourishing economy together with sometimes questionable business dealings. Depending on how raw they like their capitalism, people elsewhere in China describe Wenzhou as either a center of financial innovation or a den of loan sharks. But increasingly, Wenzhou is also a microcosm of the kind of large-scale yet informal financial dealings now going on across the country. The withdrawals by depositors and the informal money lending has spread so swiftly here that it is only in Wenzhou that the Chinese central bank releases monthly statistics on average rates for direct loans between individuals or companies. The rate hovered at 1 percent a month for years until April, when the authorities began limiting the volume of bank loans. Borrowers default on nearly half the loans issued by the state-owned banks, but seldom do so here on money that is usually borrowed from relatives, neighbors or people in the same industry. Residents insist that the risk of ostracism for failing to repay a loan is penalty enough to ensure repayment of most loans. Although judges have ruled that handwritten IOUs are legally binding, creditors seldom go to court to collect. "If it is a really good friend, I would lose face if I sued them in court," said Tu Shangyun, the owner of a local copper smelter and a part-time "silver bearer," a broker who puts lenders and borrowers in touch with each other, "and if it weren't a good friend, I wouldn't lend the money in the first place." Violence is extremely rare, but the threat of it does exist as the ultimate guarantor that people make every effort to repay debts. "Someone can hire a killer who will chase you down, beat you up and maybe even kill you," said Ma Jinlong, who oversaw market-driven financial changes in the 1990s in Wenzhou as director of the municipal economic reform committee and is now an economics professor at Wenzhou University. An austerity policy was invoked, its goal to slow rapid economic growth in the hope of stopping a spiral in the inflation rate. With consumer prices rising at 5.2 percent a year despite price controls on many goods and services, and with less-regulated prices for goods traded between companies climbing nearly twice as fast, people lose buying power while their money is on deposit at a bank. The interest rate for informal loans jumped last spring to 1.2 percent a month, or 15.4 percent compounded over a year, and has stayed there ever since. According to the nation's central bank, total bank deposits in Wenzhou have been dropping by $250 million a month since April as companies and individuals withdraw money, either because they can no longer obtain bank loans for their investments or because they want to lend the money at higher rates to each other. For lenders, these interest rates are much more attractive than earning a meager 2.25 percent a year, even after the recent rate increase, on a deposit at a government-owned bank. And while Beijing assesses a 20 percent tax on all interest from bank deposits, nobody pays tax on the income they receive from lending money on their own, Ma said. Most informal loans have traditionally gone to relatives or neighbors to finance the starting of small local businesses. Wenzhou is now one of the world's largest producers of no-brand sunglasses; Dong Ganming, the owner of a 350-employee sunglasses factory here, said that his plant was just one of almost 1,000 here involved in making glasses. Fierce competition has prompted local residents to borrow money to exploit every possible niche in the industry, with some factories making nothing but bridges for sunglasses so that they will not slide down customers' noses, other factories making only the lenses, and so forth. Any government crackdown on informal loans would carry the risk of stifling highly efficient small and medium-size businesses that have little hope of obtaining loans from the state-owned banks, which still allocate credit based partly on political connections. Dong said that loans from friends and family allowed him to start his sunglasses company with 10 employees a decade ago; he quickly paid off the loans and has been reinvesting most of the profits ever since, putting very little into bank deposits. "The interest in the bank is very low," he said. "If you invest the money, you can get much more money." But more recently, residents here say, a lot of money has been flowing into real estate here and in other big cities, especially Shanghai, helping to fuel double-digit increases in interest rates. Deals increasingly involve people who have no family or neighborhood connection, raising the risk of disputes. Kellee Tsai, a specialist in Chinese informal banking at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, said that many overseas emigrants from Wenzhou had also been sending their savings back here to be lent at much higher rates than are available in the countries they have moved to. Some local investors have been able to pay for their investments with profits from businesses here, like Chen Shen, the owner of four shops that sell shoe-manufacturing equipment to the hundreds of shoe factories that have popped up in this area. She said she paid cash for an apartment near Shanghai's Bund, its riverfront district, that had appreciated as much as 60 percent in less than two years. Still, Chinese regulators do not like the practice, and officials have been trying to stamp out such operations with limited success. They have outlawed the practice of pooling savings into various kinds of informal banks that make loans for real estate and other investments: Organizers are subject to the death penalty but are rarely caught unless the informal banks collapse. Oriental Outlook, a Chinese current affairs magazine, reported late last month on the trial of a man accused of operating an illegal bank northeast of here that collapsed a year ago, leading to the filing of more than 200 civil lawsuits. Another man who lost money in the scheme and went bankrupt as a result assaulted the defendant outside the courtroom, the magazine said. The extent of such pooling is unclear. But it poses the greatest risks of damage to financial confidence if bank runs occur at these informal institutions, economists agree. Bank runs, with depositors lined up clamoring for their money back, have been an occasional problem around China for years, but are always quickly contained as the authorities rush to distribute as much cash as necessary. "The policy with bank runs, even with illegal banks in some cases, has been to flood the bank with liquidity and pay everyone off," said Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Beijing University, who criticized as ill advised the Chinese policy of bailing out even illegal banks. "One of the most salutary ways to let people know not to put money in these is to let two or three go bankrupt." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 9 16:01:41 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 19:01:41 -0500 Subject: A hard case resists a makeover for the new age Message-ID: The Philadelphia Inquirer Posted on Sun, Nov. 07, 2004 Center Square | A hard case resists a makeover for the new age By Chris Satullo Guantanamo Bay Nov. 7 My dear wife, They are letting me write one letter to let you know that I am alive. I am at the new Liberal Media Re-Education Camp here at Gitmo; I am not allowed to see a lawyer or make phone calls. They are afraid that if I talk to a lawyer, I'll pass a coded message to my old colleagues on the Editorial Board, telling them to oppose the flat tax or support Arlen for Judiciary Committee chairman or something. This letter will be censored, so I have to be careful. First thing: I am OK. I am not harmed. There has been no torture. Yet. We're not in those steel cages in the sun or anything. It's a simple barracks, Spartan but not filthy. We get three squares a day, though the fare isn't doing much for my South Beach diet. It's all takeout from Cracker Barrel, Hardees, Bojangles. They say we've got to learn to eat like real Americans. You must have been worried sick. I don't know what they told you, but here's what happened: Wednesday afternoon, the gang and I were on our way to a mourning lunch at that French/Arab/gay fusion bistro where we like to go and plot our liberal propaganda. Suddenly, guys in dark glasses swooped up in black vans and snatched us. They didn't take the black hoods off our heads until we got to Gitmo. I haven't seen Trudy Rubin since we got here. I hear she's being treated as a "high-value" prisoner. The high values are in a cell block across the compound. Rumor has it she's in a cell with Molly Ivins and Maureen Dowd. Word is some torture goes on over there. Bill Moyers supposedly was gagged and forced to listen to Chris Matthews talk for two hours straight. Today, the guy next to me at mess, used to be a columnist at the Fresno Bee, told me they flew Paul Krugman and Michael Moore out of here by chopper last night. To Pakistan, is what I hear. Some good news: Bob Shrum, Kerry's campaign consultant, is being held somewhere in the compound, too. May he rot in his cell, the idiot. I'm not considered high value, thank God. Just a run-of-the-mill lib-symp. They chuckle when I explain I'm really a centrist. My "trainer" says nobody wants to hurt me; as soon as I show I've seen The Light and can cover the news "objectively," "without bias" and "with proper appreciation for all the President has done for the nation," I can come home to you. I'm working on it, my love. But you know those character traits that made me spend most of high school in detention? They keep coming back. Like, I'm in this seminar today called "Christian Nation: How the Bible and the Constitution Are Really One and the Same." And I raise my hand and ask: "If one candidate is a practicing Catholic who carries a rosary in his pocket, and the other one is some vague evangelical who doesn't even freaking go to church on Sunday, why did the Catholic bishops order the flock to vote for the non-Catholic?" My trainer was upset with me. So tonight I have to read three Tim LaHaye novels and write an essay on why George W. Bush is the doorway to the Rapture. Have to say, these LaHaye books are crisply plotted. Got in trouble yesterday, too, during a lecture class, "Living in Fear, and Loving It." Right after the Cheney video, I asked, "How come the states where terror attacks have actually happened or been planned went big for Kerry, while the states that Osama bin Laden's never heard of, the ones with more sheep than people, went for Bush?" For that, I had to sit through a double session of Remedial NASCAR 101. Did you know, that, of the 249,982 laps possible in 781 career starts, Terry Labonte has completed more than 90 percent (226,729)? I think of you all the time, and the kids. I know I should submit and scour my brain of the horrible addiction to facts and reality-based analysis that landed me in this hellhole. If I can do that, maybe I can come home. I'll have to get a job writing obituaries or jingles or something. They've made it quite clear my days as a pundit are over. But they tell me that if I sign the Bush loyalty pledge, my pension is safe. As safe as anybody's, anyway. But, hon, there's this guerrilla voice inside my head that just won't shut up. The Boss keeps singing in my mind: No retreat, no surrender. Even &%$!#@ Kerry couldn't spoil that song for me. Sorry, babe. Vive la Resistance! When not immersed in paranoid fantasy, Chris Satullo is still (he thinks) editorial page editor of The Inquirer. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 9 16:47:08 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 19:47:08 -0500 Subject: Mark Shuttleworth Interview: Open source is the business Message-ID: Mail and Guardian Online: Wednesday, November 10, 2004, 2:39 Africa's first online newspaper est. 1994 TEN QUESTIONS Open source is the business 09 November 2004 14:33 Mark Shuttleworth gives a thumbs up for Africa and open source software. (Photograph: Mikhail Grachyev, AFP) Open-source software: what difference will it make to my life? If you're new to computers, then open source is a whole new universe waiting to be discovered, at no real cost. Almost every kind of application is freely available as open-source software -- from business applications such as word processors, presentation software and spreadsheets to specialist tools such as programming languages and databases. Open source is the best way for a student or child to discover the world of the computer, because there is no limit or restriction on your ability to learn how the software works, since it comes with full source code. So, for new computer users, open source is "the business". If you're in the software industry, then open source is interesting because all indications are that it will come to be the default on the desktop, just as it has come to dominate the server software scene. Why should I change from Windows, Microsoft Word or Internet Explorer to open-source products such as Linux and the likes? If what you have works for you, then I would not recommend changing. If, however, you are considering an upgrade or buying new computers, then open source is certainly worth considering. If you need to run Windows, then there is a lot of open-source software for Windows too -- you don't have to switch to a Linux-based operating system such as Ubuntu to get the benefits of open source. For example, on my Windows PC I don't have Microsoft Office, I use OpenOffice from www.openoffice.org, which is freely available and has a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation package that are compatible with Microsoft Office. I also use the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird e-mail software, from www.mozilla.org, which have had very few, if any, virus attacks against them. In general, open-source software is cheaper to acquire and manage, improves faster, has better support for internationalisation and is more secure than the older proprietary alternatives. If open source takes hold, what will our desktops/computers look like in 10 years' time? Hopefully they'll look pretty familiar! Open-source software looks just like older proprietary software, it's just produced and licensed freely. Also, it tends to be easier to get different pieces of open-source software to talk to one another, because the people who produce it have an interest in making collaboration happen and using open standards rather than locking you into their software. A big area of innovation in open source is collaborative work, allowing you to work on a document simultaneously with other people, and I think this sort of open-source innovation will be the main driver of new products and concepts in the information technology industry over the next 10 years. As much as people moan about Microsoft, aren't Microsoft products superior and easier to use than many open-source programmes available today? Certainly not. Of course, it depends on the application. For example, the open-source Apache web server is generally considered to be much better than any web-server software from Microsoft, and as a result, Apache is the most widely used web-server software on the internet. In desktop office applications, I think Microsoft still has an edge, but the gap is narrowing so fast and innovation in the open-source environment is so rapid that I am confident any gap will have disappeared in two or three years. That's why I'm advocating that South Africans embrace open source now, ahead of the curve. Is Bill Gates enemy number one? Not at all -- few people in the world have been effective at managing a small business and a large business, and Gates has been brilliant throughout Microsoft's history. In the 1980s, we didn't have the internet, so a single company was probably the most efficient way to produce software that worked well together. Nowadays, the internet allows collaboration between companies and volunteers, which has resulted in the rise of open-source software. You just couldn't make open source work in the 1980s because too few people were connected, but today it's proving to be the best way to produce software. You are a capitalist, yet you preach open-source software? How do you reconcile that? The emergence of open source isn't the end of the software industry by any means, it's just yet another big change in an industry that thrives on change. I think open source is the way of the future, so I put that into practice as much through my non-profit foundation work in education as through my business investments. I believe the business model in the software industry will have to evolve, so I'm investing in companies like Canonical that have newer business models that might (or might not) work in a world without software licensing fees. Only time will tell which ideas will prosper. Was your very successful business that made you billions based on open-source software? Yes, entirely. The web server and database software that held the business together was all open source (in those days I used the Apache web server and the MySQL database, though now I prefer the PostgreSQL database). A lot of the core cryptography at Thawte was also handled by open-source tools. How have you come to terms with your wealth? It's a struggle, but... :-) I can't seriously pretend that it's a hardship, but it is a sword with several sharp edges and no real handle. Certainly, it's changed my material life, but I'm constantly reminded that the things which make me happiest are only complicated by wealth, particularly new personal relationships. Being able to do whatever I want, in many ways, creates the responsibility to try to do the right thing for me and for the people I care about. And what's really interesting is the extent to which time is a great leveller. No matter how wealthy you are, you get exactly the same amount of time in your teens, twenties, thirties and so on. Instead of being locked into a specific job, I have to choose very carefully what I do with every single day -- there are more projects that I can dream about than I have time to do properly, or even funds to do, oddly enough. So it's a great privilege and at the same time a great responsibility. Are you the Bill Gates of Africa? No, I'm one of a few Mark Shuttleworths of Africa, and apologies to the other guys who had the name first, I hope I'm not wearing it out! As to comparisons with Bill Gates, I think he's achieved far more than me in the way he has steered a large and ultimately huge company through several decades of change, and I admire that skill greatly. It's something I don't think I'd have been able to achieve; I don't have the same stamina. Even if open source is now going to dominate the industry, it doesn't detract at all from the accomplishments of Gates and the Microsoft team in the past. When are you going to the moon? Have you been in touch with Richard Branson about more space travel? For the next space mission, which I hope one day to have the opportunity to fly, the moon wouldn't be out of the question. But I think it would involve more "Nazdarovya" than "Virgin". -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 9 20:02:38 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 23:02:38 -0500 Subject: Morgan Stanley website breach Message-ID: Guardian | Morgan Stanley website breach Rupert Jones Wednesday November 10, 2004 The Guardian A credit card company with more than 1 million customers has closed an online security loophole that could have allowed people to access account holders' details and move money about. Yesterday it emerged that the Morgan Stanley website had allowed users to access their credit card information after entering just the first digit of their credit card number. The incident comes four days after internet bank Cahoot closed down its website for 10 hours following a tip-off that users could view other customers' private details. Cyber crime experts said banks and other companies must take more responsibility for providing their online customers with security or run the risk that people will steer clear of these services. Morgan Stanley had permitted customers to let their PC "remember" their password so they only had to enter the first digit of their card number before the "autocomplete" facility provided the rest. This meant that someone using the same computer could potentially access another's accounts. The Association for Payment Clearing Services (Apacs) recommends that companies disable the auto function to remove the risk of this happening. The problem was reported to Morgan Stanley by the BBC after a viewer contacted a programme about the flaw. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said it had "taken immediate steps to turn off the auto function to ensure there are no possible security issues". "Morgan Stanley has received no customer complaints or calls on this issue to date, and to our knowledge no accounts have been accessed improperly," she said. But Philippsohn Crawfords Berwald, a city law firm, said the loophole "potentially enabled users to shift money across accounts with incredible ease". -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 9 20:09:08 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 23:09:08 -0500 Subject: Sunrise in the West Message-ID: Tech Central Station Sunrise in the West By William J. Stuntz Published 11/09/2004 The conventional wisdom holds that America is and always has been divided between North and South. Actually, there is a bigger and deeper divide: between East and West. The West is winning, hands down. Consider these facts. Thirteen times since World War II, the country has elected a President from West of the Mississippi River. Easterners have won the White House twice in that time, and one of those -- Georgian Jimmy Carter -- beat another Easterner, Michigan's Gerald Ford, the only Eastern nominee of his party in the past fifty years. Eight times, an Eastern candidate squared off against a son of the West. The West won seven out of eight. Four of the seven victories were landslides. The East's one win -- John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon in 1960 -- was a squeaker. In today's more Western America, it would probably squeak the other way. The West's growing dominance has a lot to do with the Republican Party's. Thirteen of its last fifteen nominations have gone to Westerners. Nine of those candidates won; six won at least forty states. The two Easterners, New York's Thomas E. Dewey and Ford, both lost. The Democrats have been more geographically balanced: seven nominees from West of the Mississippi, eight from the East. Also less successful. Easterners Kennedy and Carter won, barely; Carter later lost massively to Californian Ronald Reagan. The other five Eastern Democrats, along with three of the seven Westerners, lost to Western Republicans. Another way to measure the country's Western tilt is this: Since World War II, tickets with two Westerners have run seven times. They won all seven elections, five by landslides. Tickets with two Easterners have run, and lost, four times. Six of the seven West-West tickets were Republican. All four of the all-East tickets were Democratic. Some of this can be chalked up to geographical coincidence. But not all, and probably not most. Deep differences of attitude and spirit separate America's two halves. Easterners like theory and process. Westerners care more about outcomes than procedures, and they like whatever works. Easterners are cautious; Westerners take chances. Easterners like universities, legislatures, and the U.N. Westerners like businesses, the executive branch, and the Army. Eastern politicians are more likely to talk down to voters -- think of Dewey, Adlai Stevenson, or John Kerry -- because they are instinctively less democratic; they come from a world where social and educational class matters and where institutions seem to outlast people. (I teach at a university that is nearly four centuries old.) Western politicians are more optimistic, believe that problems can be solved and limits surpassed. Also that institutions are temporary things: they are the creatures; people are their creators, and creators matter more than the things they create. The flip side of optimism is rootlessness: if life isn't working out, go somewhere else and reinvent yourself, like Easterner-turned-Westerner (and Democrat-turned-Republican) Ronald Reagan. Easterners are more likely to be defined, and confined, by place. Eastern candidates want to protect a lead and play it safe -- Dewey, anyone? -- while Westerners roll the dice, not only in campaigns but in the White House: Reagan's simultaneous tax cuts and defense buildup (Howard Baker called it "a riverboat gamble," and it was), Bush's war in Iraq and his decision to wrap his arms around the third rail of American politics. The patterns don't always hold. Bob Dole comes from Kansas and is a small-d democrat to his core, but most of his political instincts are Eastern. The elder George Bush voted in Texas but lived most of his life in New England and Washington, D.C., and it shows. John F. Kennedy was Eastern through and through, but his politics showed a Western optimism: cut taxes and revenues will rise; promise that we will walk on the moon, then make it happen. Today, New Yorker Rudy Giuliani is one of the nation's most Western politicians -- like a New Yorker of the last century who loved the West (the West loved him back) and had a Giuliani-like executive temperament: Theodore Roosevelt. And the regional breakdowns are more complex than first appears. The Pacific Coast votes with the Northeast in national elections, though it still has a different political feel: One can hardly imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger, a classic Westerner, rocketing to the top of Massachusetts politics. So, too, the South -- including its Eastern seaboard -- usually lines up with the West in national elections, a pattern that goes back to William Jennings Bryan, and maybe to Andrew Jackson. But the West dominates this West-South political alliance, at least in presidential politics. The current President Bush is a good example. Though he is sometimes called a Southerner, Bush's orientation is more West than South. White Southerners (the modifier is important) are instinctive pessimists, perhaps because their ancestors lost a great war. They are rooted, not just to the land but to one particular piece of it, in a way Westerners aren't. Even their religion is different, more respectful of church authorities. Bush's Methodism is fiercely independent; it draws more inspiration from the Pope than from his own church's bishops. And Bush is Reagan-like in his fondness for taking big chances, rolling the dice. John Kerry, meanwhile, is a classic Easterner. Kerry may not have shaped the Senate during the past twenty years; he does not appear to have had much influence there. But the Senate has shaped him. His outlook on governance is quintessentially legislative -- and quintessentially legal. Legislators, like lawyers (Kerry is both), believe that if you get the process right, if the right people are consulted along the way and the right arguments are made at the right times, good decisions will follow. Executives know better. Sometimes more process only gums up the works. Consultation helps only if those who are consulted give wise advice. The bottom line matters more than what steps one takes to get there. Perhaps Kerry's critique of Bush's approach to terrorism didn't sell because it boiled down to two inconsistent claims about process: Don't consult allies in Afghanistan; that's outsourcing. Consult everyone in the world -- well, everyone in the United Nations -- about Iraq. On the campaign trail, Kerry often said that he "might" have gone to war in Iraq, but that if he had, "I'd have done it right." Meaning, he would have gotten the right process. There is a very different critique that one could make of Bush's presidency: The process has been fine, but too many bottom lines are wrong. Maybe going to war in Iraq was too risky a venture. (Al Gore was right about one thing: George W. Bush really does like "risky schemes.") Today, Bush's massive tax cuts coupled with equally massive spending increases -- and we haven't even begun to fix entitlement programs, which will cost a bundle -- look like a losing bet. The problem with Bush is not that he prays, not that he takes chances or shoots from the hip, not that he doesn't listen to Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schroeder. It's that he often makes bad decisions. An executive critique rather than a legislative one might have won the election. We'll never know. For my part, I'm torn, as I suspect many Americans are: Eastern and Western blood flows through a lot of the same veins. I don't like risk; huge deficits terrify me. I'm a lawyer by training and so tend to value process too highly. But when I look at the broad sweep of American history, I see a country that, time and again, ignored process and took gambles that paid off big. Westerner Abraham Lincoln -- in his America, Illinois was definitely the West -- fought and won a long, hard war that freed millions and saved mankind's last, best hope. Westerners Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan fought and won another long, hard war, and millions more taste freedom because of it -- and they did it without incinerating half the planet. The sheer size of those achievements boggles the mind. Maybe, just maybe, two decades from now the Near East will be filled with Muslim democracies; young men and women (women!) will fight their battles with ballots rather than bombs. If so, that too will be a mind-boggling achievement, the happy bequest of a Westerner who once ran a baseball team, and loved to swing for the fences. William J. Stuntz is a Professor at Harvard Law School. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Tue Nov 9 20:20:44 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 23:20:44 -0500 Subject: What Next for Libertarians? Message-ID: Tech Central Station Ryan H. Sager What Next for Libertarians? By Ryan Sager Published 11/09/2004 Libertarianism is in a bad way following the 2004 presidential election -- and not just because Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik failed to overtake Ralph Nader for third place (though, if it's any consolation, he tied the erstwhile consumer advocate in the Electoral College). No, the problem is that both parties proved themselves able to ignore libertarian ideas almost completely this year and are only likely to do so increasingly going forward. Now, make no mistake about it, this was an election mainly about foreign policy (a topic to which libertarian philosophy has traditionally been difficult to apply). While much has been made of the fact that 22 percent of voters chose "moral values" as their "most important issue" when asked in exit polls -- making it the most popular of the options given -- that was only because "terrorism" and "Iraq" were listed as separate choices. Together, those foreign-policy topics, inextricably linked in the minds of many, were the deciding factor for 34 percent of voters. But the utter irrelevance of libertarian ideas this year can't be written off simply because of the nation's current foreign-policy concerns. It's impossible to ignore the fact that the domestic agendas of both parties this year were based firmly on expanding the power of the state. The Kerry-Edwards campaign, in its only small-government gambit, opposed certain provisions of the Patriot Act; but, for fear of looking soft on terror, that position was, shall we say, deemphasized. Otherwise, the Democrats pushed a pretty standard, statist line: "rolling back" tax cuts (otherwise known as "raising taxes," be it only on the rich), nationalizing health care, leaving Social Security to fester, spending more on education, increasing the amount of environmental regulation and putting a flu shot in every pot. The Bush-Cheney team had its version, a little lighter on economic statism but heavier on cultural statism: leaving in place its own move toward socialized medicine (a.k.a., the colossally expensive Medicare prescription drug benefit), cracking down on "indecency" and banning gay marriage. Tax cuts were also promised, though not paired with any cuts in programs to pay for them. Social Security reform may have been the only bright spot. So, what can we expect from the Republicans going forward? More of the same -- but worse. Karl Rove is already out in the press promising President Bush's evangelical base a renewed push to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. And there can be absolutely no doubt that such an amendment, if not passed soon, will become a central issue in the 2006 midterm elections, used as a wedge issue to paint any Democratic senator or congressman who doesn't go along as a hopelessly out-of-touch liberal. And what can we expect from the Democrats? It's too soon to tell definitively, of course, but there are really only two directions the party can move, neither of them terribly favorable to the libertarian-minded. The party could begin playing to its liberal base -- MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, etc. -- but that would only pull it further out of the mainstream, leaving the Republicans to run the country unchallenged. More likely, we'll see a serious move by the party to close the "values gap" that supposedly cost its candidates so dearly this election cycle. There are any number of ways this could happen. Suddenly, Democrats in Congress could join Republicans in supporting a flag-burning amendment. They could suddenly become quite attached to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. They could roll over on the anti-gay marriage amendment. And it would be completely unsurprising if Americans woke up suddenly to find the Democrats initiating new hearings into violence and sex in the music industry, television, movies, video games, Web pages, comic books or wherever. Libertarianism never flourishes during times of war, but that's exactly why people concerned with economic liberalism and social freedom should be concerned. With the War on Terror likely to be the defining issue of a generation, libertarians must begin to grapple with it seriously instead of pretending it doesn't exist. The forces of statism in this country have grabbed onto this war to move the center of gravity in our politics to the left economically and to the right socially. Karl Rove and the forces of "national-greatness conservatism" embodied in places such as The Weekly Standard have seen the chance to create a "permanent Republican majority" -- a platform combining traditional Republican strength on national security with a radical expansion of the size of the federal government, designed to rob the Democrats of their natural constituency. The Republican Party under Bush, in short, has ceased to be a hospitable environment for libertarians, and the alternative looks no better. The party that came in second isn't the only one with some thinking to do right now. Those of us in fourth need to wake up as well. Ryan Sager is a member of the editorial board of The New York Post. He also edits the blog Miscellaneous Objections and can be reached at editor at rhsager.com. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 10 06:41:33 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:41:33 -0500 Subject: Why we're a divided nation Message-ID: This is one of the best arguments for minimal government I've heard. Like most good arguments, it's blindingly simple. Cheers, RAH ------- Townhall.com Why we're a divided nation Walter E. Williams (back to web version) | Send November 10, 2004 Recent elections pointed to deepening divisions among American people, but has anyone given serious thought to just why? I have part of the answer, which starts off with a simple example. Different Americans have different and intensive preferences for cars, food, clothing and entertainment. For example, some Americans love opera and hate rock and roll. Others have opposite preferences, loving rock and roll and hating opera. When's the last time you heard of rock-and-roll lovers in conflict with opera lovers? It seldom, if ever, happens. Why? Those who love operas get what they want, and those who love rock and roll get what they want, and both can live in peace with one another. Suppose that instead of freedom in the music market, decisions on what kind of music people could listen to were made in the political arena. It would be either opera or rock and roll. Rock and rollers would be lined up against opera lovers. Why? It's simple. If the opera lovers win, rock and rollers would lose, and the reverse would happen if rock and rollers won. Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena. The prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person or group's gain is of necessity another person or group's loss. As such, political allocation of resources is conflict enhancing while market allocation is conflict reducing. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater is the potential for conflict. There are other implications of political decision-making. Throughout most of our history, we've lived in relative harmony. That's remarkable because just about every religion, racial and ethnic group in the world is represented in our country. These are the very racial/ethnic/religious groups that have for centuries been trying to slaughter one another in their home countries, among them: Turks and Armenians, Protestant and Catholic, Muslim and Jew, Croats and Serbs. While we haven't been a perfect nation, there have been no cases of the mass genocide and religious wars that have plagued the globe elsewhere. The closest we've come was the American Indian/European conflict, which pales by comparison. The reason we've been able to live in relative harmony is that for most of our history government was small. There wasn't much pie to distribute politically. When it's the political arena that determines who gets what goodies, the most effective coalitions are those with a proven record of being the most divisive -- those based on race, ethnicity, religion and region. As a matter of fact, our most costly conflict involved a coalition based upon region -- namely the War of 1861. Many of the issues that divide us, aside from the Iraq war, are those best described as a zero-sum game, where one group's gain is of necessity another's loss. Examples are: racial preferences, Social Security, tax policy, trade restrictions, welfare and a host of other government policies that benefit one American at the expense of another American. You might be tempted to think that the brutal domestic conflict seen in other countries at other times can't happen here. That's nonsense. Americans are not super-humans; we possess the same frailties of other people in other places. If there were a severe economic calamity, I can imagine a political hustler exploiting those frailties here, just as Adolf Hitler did in Germany, blaming it on the Jews, the blacks, the East Coast, Catholics or free trade. The best thing the president and Congress can do to heal our country is to reduce the impact of government on our lives. Doing so will not only produce a less divided country and greater economic efficiency but bear greater faith and allegiance to the vision of America held by our founders -- a country of limited government. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From chuckw at quantumlinux.com Wed Nov 10 09:54:41 2004 From: chuckw at quantumlinux.com (Chuck Wolber) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:54:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: > At 7:11 PM -0800 11/8/04, Chuck Wolber wrote: > >"&cet" is an HTMl element > > Wrong again. Mere hyperlatinate British public school affectation, & = > et, and, um, all that... Strange, you called that a rudimentary part of modern culture. Are you aware of any territories outside of that which the queen et. al. has jurisdiction? > >> Yes, and, apparently, by your inability to parse something that is a > >> rudimentary part of modern culture, you generated it. > > > >Or perhaps it's your lack of command of the modern QWERTY keyboard... > > Nope. See above, and, again, thank you for playing. Bad form. Rude and dismissive. Tsk tsk. I guess it's a good way of redirecting the argument when you're getting desperate though... -Chuck -- http://www.quantumlinux.com Quantum Linux Laboratories, LLC. ACCELERATING Business with Open Technology "The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." - FDR From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Wed Nov 10 06:54:49 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:54:49 -0500 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks Message-ID: Fascinating. And typical of the unusual Chinese seesaw that has occurred throuout the aeons between hyper-strict centralized control and something approaching a lite version of anarchy. There's no good mapping of this into Western ideas of fascism, marxism, and economics. Interesting too that there's a ganster base in Wenzhou. This is precisely where the young Chiang Kai Shek consolidated his power early on as a local gangster/warlord. -TD >From: "R.A. Hettinga" >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks >Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:10:52 -0500 > > > > > > > >China's wealthy bypass the banks > >By Keith Bradsher The New York Times > Wednesday, November 10, 2004 > > >WENZHOU, China The Wenzhou "stir-fry" is not a dish you eat. But it is >giving indigestion to Chinese regulators and could prove troublesome to >many investors worldwide, from New York money managers, Pennsylvania >steelworkers and Midwestern farmers to Australian miners. > > Here in this freewheeling city at the forefront of capitalism in China, >the dish is prepared when a group of wealthy friends pool millions of >dollars' worth of Chinese yuan and put them into a hot investment like >Shanghai real estate, where they are stirred and flipped for a hefty >profit. The friends often lend each other large amounts on the strength of >a handshake and a handwritten IOU. > > Both sides then go to an automated teller machine or bank branch to >transfer the money, which is then withdrawn from the bank. Or sometimes >they do it the old-fashioned way: exchanging burlap sacks stuffed with >cash. > > The worry for Chinese regulators is that everyone in China will start >cooking the Wenzhou stir-fry and do it outside the banking system. > > In the last few months, borrowing and lending across the rest of China is >looking more and more like what is taking place in Wenzhou. The growth of >this shadow banking system poses a stiff challenge to China's state-owned >banks, already burdened with bad debt, and makes it harder for the nation's >leaders to steer a fast-growing economy. > > The problem starts with China's low interest rates. More and more >families >with savings have been snubbing 2 percent interest on bank deposits for the >double-digit returns from lending large amounts on their own. > > They lend to real estate speculators or to small businesses without the >political connections to obtain loans from the banks. > > Not only is the informal lending rate higher, but the income from that >lending, because it is semilegal at best, is not taxed. For fear of shame, >ostracism and the occasional threat from thugs, borrowers are more likely >to pay back these loans than those from the big banks. > > Tao Dong, chief China economist at Credit Suisse First Boston, calculates >that Chinese citizens withdrew $12 billion to $17 billion from their bank >deposits in August and September. > > The outflow turned into a flood last month, reaching an estimated $120 >billion, or more than 3 percent of all deposits at the country's financial >institutions. > > If the bank withdrawals are not stemmed in the months ahead, Tao warned, >"this potentially could be a huge risk for financial stability and even >social stability." > > And with China now accounting for more than a quarter of the world's >steel >production and nearly a fifth of soybean production, as well as some of the >largest initial public offerings of stock, any shaking of financial >confidence here could ripple quickly through markets in the United States >and elsewhere. > > For instance, if the steel girders now being lifted into place by >hundreds >of tower cranes in big cities across China are no longer needed, that would >produce a worldwide glut of steel and push down prices. > > On Oct. 28, when China's central bank raised interest rates for one-year >loans and deposits by a little more than a quarter of a percentage point, >it cited a need to keep money in the banking system. Higher official rates >should "reduce external cycling of credit funds," the bank said in a >statement. > > Eswar Prasad, the chief of the China division of the International >Monetary Fund, expressed concern about bank withdrawals in a speech in Hong >Kong three days before the central bank acted. > > The main Chinese banks have fairly substantial reserves, but they need >those reserves to cover huge write-offs of bad debts some day. > > The hub of informal lending in China is here in Wenzhou, 370 kilometers, >or 230 miles, south of Shanghai. Some of China's first experiments with the >free market began here in the late 1970s, and the result has been a >flourishing economy together with sometimes questionable business dealings. > > Depending on how raw they like their capitalism, people elsewhere in >China >describe Wenzhou as either a center of financial innovation or a den of >loan sharks. But increasingly, Wenzhou is also a microcosm of the kind of >large-scale yet informal financial dealings now going on across the >country. > > The withdrawals by depositors and the informal money lending has spread >so >swiftly here that it is only in Wenzhou that the Chinese central bank >releases monthly statistics on average rates for direct loans between >individuals or companies. The rate hovered at 1 percent a month for years >until April, when the authorities began limiting the volume of bank loans. > > Borrowers default on nearly half the loans issued by the state-owned >banks, but seldom do so here on money that is usually borrowed from >relatives, neighbors or people in the same industry. > > Residents insist that the risk of ostracism for failing to repay a loan >is >penalty enough to ensure repayment of most loans. > > Although judges have ruled that handwritten IOUs are legally binding, >creditors seldom go to court to collect. "If it is a really good friend, I >would lose face if I sued them in court," said Tu Shangyun, the owner of a >local copper smelter and a part-time "silver bearer," a broker who puts >lenders and borrowers in touch with each other, "and if it weren't a good >friend, I wouldn't lend the money in the first place." > > > > Violence is extremely rare, but the threat of it does exist as the >ultimate guarantor that people make every effort to repay debts. > > "Someone can hire a killer who will chase you down, beat you up and maybe >even kill you," said Ma Jinlong, who oversaw market-driven financial >changes in the 1990s in Wenzhou as director of the municipal economic >reform committee and is now an economics professor at Wenzhou University. > > An austerity policy was invoked, its goal to slow rapid economic growth >in >the hope of stopping a spiral in the inflation rate. With consumer prices >rising at 5.2 percent a year despite price controls on many goods and >services, and with less-regulated prices for goods traded between companies >climbing nearly twice as fast, people lose buying power while their money >is on deposit at a bank. > > The interest rate for informal loans jumped last spring to 1.2 percent a >month, or 15.4 percent compounded over a year, and has stayed there ever >since. According to the nation's central bank, total bank deposits in >Wenzhou have been dropping by $250 million a month since April as companies >and individuals withdraw money, either because they can no longer obtain >bank loans for their investments or because they want to lend the money at >higher rates to each other. > > For lenders, these interest rates are much more attractive than earning a >meager 2.25 percent a year, even after the recent rate increase, on a >deposit at a government-owned bank. And while Beijing assesses a 20 percent >tax on all interest from bank deposits, nobody pays tax on the income they >receive from lending money on their own, Ma said. > > Most informal loans have traditionally gone to relatives or neighbors to >finance the starting of small local businesses. Wenzhou is now one of the >world's largest producers of no-brand sunglasses; Dong Ganming, the owner >of a 350-employee sunglasses factory here, said that his plant was just one >of almost 1,000 here involved in making glasses. > > Fierce competition has prompted local residents to borrow money to >exploit >every possible niche in the industry, with some factories making nothing >but bridges for sunglasses so that they will not slide down customers' >noses, other factories making only the lenses, and so forth. Any government >crackdown on informal loans would carry the risk of stifling highly >efficient small and medium-size businesses that have little hope of >obtaining loans from the state-owned banks, which still allocate credit >based partly on political connections. > > Dong said that loans from friends and family allowed him to start his >sunglasses company with 10 employees a decade ago; he quickly paid off the >loans and has been reinvesting most of the profits ever since, putting very >little into bank deposits. "The interest in the bank is very low," he said. >"If you invest the money, you can get much more money." > > But more recently, residents here say, a lot of money has been flowing >into real estate here and in other big cities, especially Shanghai, helping >to fuel double-digit increases in interest rates. > > Deals increasingly involve people who have no family or neighborhood >connection, raising the risk of disputes. > > Kellee Tsai, a specialist in Chinese informal banking at Johns Hopkins >University in the United States, said that many overseas emigrants from >Wenzhou had also been sending their savings back here to be lent at much >higher rates than are available in the countries they have moved to. > > Some local investors have been able to pay for their investments with >profits from businesses here, like Chen Shen, the owner of four shops that >sell shoe-manufacturing equipment to the hundreds of shoe factories that >have popped up in this area. She said she paid cash for an apartment near >Shanghai's Bund, its riverfront district, that had appreciated as much as >60 percent in less than two years. > > > > Still, Chinese regulators do not like the practice, and officials have >been trying to stamp out such operations with limited success. > > They have outlawed the practice of pooling savings into various kinds of >informal banks that make loans for real estate and other investments: >Organizers are subject to the death penalty but are rarely caught unless >the informal banks collapse. > > Oriental Outlook, a Chinese current affairs magazine, reported late last >month on the trial of a man accused of operating an illegal bank northeast >of here that collapsed a year ago, leading to the filing of more than 200 >civil lawsuits. Another man who lost money in the scheme and went bankrupt >as a result assaulted the defendant outside the courtroom, the magazine >said. > > The extent of such pooling is unclear. But it poses the greatest risks of >damage to financial confidence if bank runs occur at these informal >institutions, economists agree. Bank runs, with depositors lined up >clamoring for their money back, have been an occasional problem around >China for years, but are always quickly contained as the authorities rush >to distribute as much cash as necessary. > > "The policy with bank runs, even with illegal banks in some cases, has >been to flood the bank with liquidity and pay everyone off," said Michael >Pettis, a finance professor at Beijing University, who criticized as ill >advised the Chinese policy of bailing out even illegal banks. > > "One of the most salutary ways to let people know not to put money in >these is to let two or three go bankrupt." > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 10 07:09:35 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:09:35 -0500 Subject: Secession Message-ID: Townhall.com Secession Tony Blankley (back to web version) | Send November 10, 2004 I assume the Republican National Committee is busy recording and archiving the idiotic statements coming out of national Democratic Party leaders and commentators. There is no doubt that the election has not only yielded a victory for the Republicans, but also a bumper crop of self-destructive vitriol and bitterness from the Democrats. The opinion pages of the New York Times (that would be pages A-1- D 37 inclusive) have been running articles by prime cut liberals, the general themes of which have been that conservative Christians are the equivalent of Islamic terrorists and that the benighted provincials who voted for President Bush are simply hate-filled bigots who have no place in America. The apotheosis of this political dementia was put forward in my very presence on last week's "McLaughlin Group" by my friend and colleague Lawrence O'Donnell. Lawrence, in cool blood and in apparent full control of his senses, asserted that this election will give rise to a serious consideration of secession from the Union by the blue states. I should point out that though Lawrence has been barking more than usual in this election season's TV commentary, he is a brilliant political analyst and a serious Democratic Party player. He was the late Sen. Moynihan's top Senate staffer. He comes from one of the great Democratic Party families. I believe it was his uncle who was President John Kennedy's White House chief of staff. He is also the most gifted writer/producer on the NBC show, "West Wing." He is not one of those no name nitwits who the cable shows pull from obscurity to recite Democratic Party talking points. I elaborate on his enviable pedigree and qualities of mind and experience because if he says such a thing to a television audience of six million viewers, it must surely reflect some measurable body of senior Democratic Party sentiment. And although it is inconceivable that any senior elected Democratic Party officials would ever repeat or act on such a deranged notion, it is a measure of how deep is the Democratic Party elite's contempt of and estrangement from the American public. In this regard, I couldn't help thinking of the founding election of the modern Democratic Party -- the election of 1828, when General Andrew Jackson of Tennessee defeated John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts by 139,000 votes out of 1.1 million cast. That election, which defined the Democratic Party that we have known for almost two centuries, has been called the first triumph of the common man in American politics. It pitted the moneyed interests of the Northeast against the farmers and working free laborers of the South and West. It was the first election in which almost all of the states (22 of 24) used direct popular election rather than state legislatures to elect the presidential electors. It was capped with a raucous inaugural celebration during which "rustic" common people shocked Washington society as they wandered through the White House celebrating, drinking and shaking President Andy Jackson's hand. And so started a bond between the Democratic Party and the typical working American that lasted 176 years -- until last Tuesday. It's not that the Democrats lost an election; obviously both parties have lost numerous elections. But never before in my memory -- which goes back faintly to 1956 -- has either party in its loss reacted with such venomous contempt for the American people. When we conservatives got shellacked in 1964 -- with Goldwater losing 61 percent-39 percent to Lyndon Johnson -- we knew we had a lot of work ahead if we were going to educate the public to our views. But I can honestly say that although I remember thinking that the public was misguided in its judgment, I never hated or felt contemptuous of the majority electorate -- of my fellow countrymen. This dominant sentiment of the Democratic Party elite -- that scores of millions of Americans are categorically unacceptable as fellow countrymen -- is evidence of a cancer in the soul of that party. These Democrats, quite expressly, are asserting that "christers," people who believe in the teachings of Jesus as described in the inerrant words of the Bible, are un-American, almost subhuman. Some of these Democrats would rather secede than stay in the same country with such people. If they were in the majority with no need to secede, what would they do? Their bigoted and absolutist view of religious people is at least a second cousin to the Nazi view of the Jews. In Europe, the few remaining people of faith have recently taken to calling the increasingly more adamant European secularist majority "secular fundamentalists." While that phrase is unfair to the perfectly respectable fundamentalist religious sentiment -- it shows how much more harsh and filled with fear the religious/secular divide is becoming. Fortunately, most rank-and-file Democrats are not infected with such secular bigotry. Democrats don't need to secede. They just need to purge their party of such of their leaders and intellectual vanguard as spew forth such rubbish. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 10 07:44:37 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:44:37 -0500 Subject: Cryptography Research Expands Into Europe Message-ID: Yahoo! Finance Press Release Source: Cryptography Research, Inc. Cryptography Research Expands Into Europe Wednesday November 10, 8:09 am ET Industry Veteran Ken Warren Takes Reins as Smart Card Business Manager SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Recognizing the strategic significance of Europe in driving the deployment of smart cards, Cryptography Research, Inc. today announced it has set up operations in the United Kingdom to provide enhanced support for European licensees of its recently launched DPA Countermeasures Licensing Program. Cryptography Research also announced the appointment of smart card industry veteran Ken Warren to head up the effort as smart card business manager. Warren will ensure European customers can successfully implement CRI's patented countermeasures, and he will actively represent CRI in all European smart card industry activities. ADVERTISEMENT Although the smart card market is becoming increasingly global, the majority of the industry leaders have their headquarters, R&D facilities and design centers in Europe. By establishing representation in Europe, Cryptography research is again demonstrating its commitment to the smart card industry and to providing the necessary support to improve the security of smart card devices. In his position as smart card business manager, Ken Warren brings a wealth of industry expertise, and CRI's European customers will be able to benefit from his support at the local level. "With Ken Warren leading our European expansion, Cryptography Research has achieved a new milestone in its quest to reduce fraud and piracy in the smart card industry through effective DPA countermeasures," said Paul Kocher, president of Cryptography Research. "Europe is key to building on the early success of our DPA Countermeasures Licensing Program, and we are fortunate to have someone of Ken's stature at the helm and to represent us to the leaders in the smart card industry." Ken Warren has extensive experience in the smart card industry, having worked in a variety of roles for more than 12 years. Before joining CRI, Ken was group marketing manager at Renesas Technology Europe Ltd, the world's number-one supplier of microcontrollers and a leader in security IC products. Prior to that, Ken was smart card business development manager for Hitachi Europe Ltd. Ken has also held positions at NatWest Bank and Mondex International where he was responsible for IC security. "CRI has taken the lead in developing the technologies necessary for cryptographic device manufacturers, smart card vendors and smart card issuers to produce more secure, DPA-resistant products, and now we are bringing them directly to the major industry players in Europe," said Ken Warren. "I look forward to working with Kit Rodgers, director of licensing, and the others at CRI, and to supporting the smart card industry in its efforts to prevent DPA attacks and reduce fraud and piracy." Differential Power Analysis and related attacks were first discovered at Cryptography Research by Paul Kocher, Joshua Jaffe and Benjamin Jun. DPA involves monitoring the fluctuating electrical power consumption of smart cards and other secure cryptographic devices and applying advanced statistical methods to extract secret keys and other information. An attacker who successfully employs DPA can create fraudulent transactions, generate counterfeit digital cash, or receive unauthorized access to digital content. Cryptography Research's DPA-related patents provide the basis for implementing effective DPA countermeasures in smart cards and other devices, and a license is required to make, use or sell any DPA-resistant product. Organizations that join the Cryptography Research DPA Countermeasures Licensing Program receive priority access to Cryptography Research's experienced technical staff and research team. Licensees also gain the right to display the "DPA lock" logo on qualifying products. Early-adopter terms are being offered for a limited time to provide competitive advantages to early licensees, including superior pricing and forgiveness for infringement of CRI's countermeasure patents in already-deployed products with DPA countermeasures. About Cryptography Research, Inc. Cryptography Research, Inc. provides technology to solve complex security problems. In addition to security evaluation and applied engineering work, CRI is actively involved in long-term research in areas including tamper resistance, content protection, network security and financial services. The company has a broad portfolio of patents covering countermeasures to differential power analysis and other vulnerabilities, and is committed to helping companies produce secure smart cards and other tamper resistant devices. Security systems designed by Cryptography Research engineers annually protect more than $60 billion of commerce for wireless, telecommunications, financial, digital television and Internet industries. For additional information or to arrange a consultation with a member of the technical staff, please contact Jen Craft at 415-397-0123, ext. 329 or visit www.cryptography.com. Source: Cryptography Research, Inc. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From bill.stewart at pobox.com Wed Nov 10 12:40:34 2004 From: bill.stewart at pobox.com (Bill Stewart) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:40:34 -0800 Subject: Ashcroft resigns, America is Safer, at least for the moment In-Reply-To: <20041109174021.B5478@baltwash.com> References: <20041109174021.B5478@baltwash.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.0.20041110093355.04061a40@pop.idiom.com> With Ashcroft going, America's a bit safer, unless of course his successor is just as bad. One of the candidates for Ashcroft's successor is Bush's White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales, who's been responsible for several memos suggesting that POWs from Afghanistan aren't protected by the Geneva Conventions and that torturing captives may be ok. So we may not be safer once he's in place. Another candidate is Larry Thompson, former deputy attorney general, who's currently the general counsel for Pepsico. He's black, which is for some reason still politically interesting, but he's also indicated that he likes working at Pepsico. NYT's latest rumors favor Gonzales. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Cabinet.html?oref=login (Requires free login - use some fake email address if you don't have one.) From jamesd at echeque.com Wed Nov 10 13:12:31 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:12:31 -0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4192843F.2060506@echeque.com> -- Tyler Durden wrote: > Fascinating. And typical of the unusual Chinese seesaw that has > occurred throuout the aeons between hyper-strict centralized control > and something approaching a lite version of anarchy. There's no good > mapping of this into Western ideas of fascism, marxism, and > economics. Maps near enough. The Chinese concept of "legalism" is barely distinguishable from German concepts of communism and nazism. However Confucianism vs Daoism/Taoism is rather different from what you would get in the west. Confucianism is somewhat similar to what you would get if western cultural conservatives allied themselves with nazi/commies, in the way that the commies are prone to imagine conservatives have supposedly allied themselves with nazis. Taoism somewhat similar to what you would get if anarcho capitalists allied themselves with pagans and wiccans, in the way that conservatives are prone to imagine that they have, though in reality the pagans and wiccans line up with the greenies and nazis, for the most part. This is the result of a Chinese heritage of politicide and mass murder, whereas the west has a heritage of compromise and negotiation. So in the west, we have ordinary people forbidden from doing banking stuff, but a pile of loopholes in that law, and we do not have the death penalty for unauthorized banking, whereas in China, they do have the death penalty, and despite the death penalty, massive defiance of the law. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG NWin7CjdJuYCUBbj9jwfYAiCHobTuUO1Bw3DLogP 4Unpss2ukPbY+HeKKDTu441IpswCXzfXLuU2FCphs From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 10 10:59:00 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:59:00 -0500 Subject: Faith in democracy, not government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 9:54 AM -0800 11/10/04, Chuck Wolber wrote: >redirecting Ah. Yes. *That's* the word I was looking for... There. That should stop the bandwidth leak... Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 10 13:20:43 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:20:43 -0500 Subject: The Full Chomsky Message-ID: MensNewsDaily.com The Full Chomsky November 10, 2004 by Bernard Chapin Question: How could a linguist working as a college professor have omniscient insight regarding the inner-workings of the American government and exclusive knowledge concerning the hidden motivations of every government official in our nation's history? Answer: There's no way he could. Yet, such common sense does little to refute the fact that Noam Chomsky is one of the ten most quoted figures in the humanities. He has published screed after screed deconstructing American foreign policy positions and never has given any indication that his insinuations may somehow be limited by lack of connections or first hand evidence (or, in some cases, any evidence whatsoever). Since the 1960s, he has fully played the role of Wizard Professor and created an entire library's worth of "pseudo-academic smog" . Until recently, there have been few antidotes for his morass of accusations and allegations, but now we have The Anti-Chomsky Reader, edited by David Horowitz and Peter Collier, which offers purchasers the service of deconstructing the deconstructor. Once you've finished reading it, you'll be highly grateful as Chomsky's lies are so pervasive and counter-intuitive that it's a wonder anyone but the paranoid ever read him in the first place. The Anti-Chomsky Reader is a compilation of essays outlining and refuting the travesties that the M.I.T. linguist has passed off as truth. It does not confine itself to politics alone. Substantial space is given to the analysis of his scholarly publications in linguistics. These are addressed in two chapters called, "A Corrupted Linguistics" and "Chomsky, Language, World War II and Me." In the area of his chosen field, many have given him an intellectual pass but this work does not. His linguistic ideas may be as spurious as his political tomes. All sources give him initial credit for his core academic assumption about the "biological basis of grammar," but it seems that he has engaged in little in the way of scientifically verifiable work over the course of the last fifty years. Chomsky's creative terminology dazzles admirers but his new theories inevitably amount to nothing Overall, the compendium leaves no region of his reputation left unexamined. Anti-Americanism is central to his worldview. He never sees this nation as being superior to any other. At best, we mirror the pathologies of totalitarian states. We can discern this clearly in Stephen Morris's "Whitewashing Dictatorship in Communist Vietnam and Cambodia." The author sums up Chomsky's fetish for defending the Vietnamese and Democratic Kampuchea aptly when he argues that, "As a radical political ideologue, he is crippled by an intense emotional commitment to the cause of anti-Americanism. Operating on the principle that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend,' he wholeheartedly embraced the struggle of two of the world's most ruthlessly brutal regimes." Chomsky's hopes for mankind are vested in murderous revolutionaries and not in his own nation. It is our nation, and never the Khmer Rouge, which gives its citizens the freedom to vote, the freedom to trade, and, most obviously, the freedom to spread the type of sedition that Noam Chomsky has been disseminating for close to 40 years. He does not limit himself to Asia, however. The professor has constantly minimized the acts of many totalitarian states. Chomsky regarded Soviet control of eastern Europe, when compared to the American presence in Vietnam, as being "practically a paradise" We see a man who cares far more about Holocaust deniers than the six million who were exterminated in gas chambers or desolate Russian ravines. After 9/11, he was more concerned about a fictitious famine in Afghanistan than about the nearly 3,000 incinerated in The World Trade Center attacks. He predicted that the toppling of the Taliban would result in 3 to 4 million famine deaths. When no such famine occurred, he did not issue an apology or retraction. He simply chose to say nothing. There is not much about this world famous ideologue that is genuine. He has ardently defended the right of free speech for anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying cranks like Robert Faurisson and Pierre Guillaume but chose not to say anything, or sign any petitions, supporting Soviet intellectuals relegated to the gulag due to their ideas. Chomsky's self-proclaimed political orientation is preposterous. He is enthralled with the socialist ideal but describes himself as a libertarian. If this were true he would be the first libertarian in history who hated capitalism and the free market. He also claims to be an anarchist but seems to love nothing more than strong governments which redistribute the wealth of its citizens and coerce its people into complying with the socialist ideal. He is so deeply repulsed by our nation, and so entirely lacking in perspective, that he holds Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Truman to be war criminals but Pol Pot, who murdered 25 percent of all Cambodians, as creating "constructive achievements for much of the population." He has an easy answer for those who dare argue with him. We do not understand as we have false consciousness . Only he, the magician, can know the true workings of the American state. Stylistically, Chomsky's works are written with an obfuscating hand and penned in the language of the opaque. The mechanics of his style: "As a strategy for creating a Potemkin village of intellectual authenticity, [are] brilliant; as scholarship it is charlatanism." Chomsky litters his work with footnotes yet the footnotes are a parlor game because they often lead to more footnotes citing other assertions he made in earlier works. The most egregious passage of them all occurs in John Williamson's essay, "Chomsky, Language, World War II and Me." It concerns Chomsky's interview with The New Yorker magazine where he is quoted as saying to one of his classes that Russian archives proved that Britain and the United States supported Nazi armies in the hopes of holding back the Soviet's eastern advance. When questioned about the quotation by Williamson, Chomsky dismissed the reporter as having manufactured his statement and that she had printed "a ridiculous gossip column." He then, even though he claimed not to have said what he did, referred Williamson to a source that did not support his assertion in the least. Chomsky's statement about the reporter turned out to be slanderous as the lecture that the reporter quoted from is available online via videotape. In it, the linguist says exactly what the reporter says he did. When confronted with his mendacity, Chomsky changed tactics and pronounced how absurd it was for someone to quote from his lecture. The real absurdity is that anyone should take him seriously at all. In case one thinks that this was an isolated incident, Chomsky appears to have learned nothing from The New Yorker scandal as he lied last month in a speech at the University of Michigan when he said that the United States had planned an attack on Japan before Pearl Harbor. No evidence was offered to support his claim as no evidence exists. What can one say about Chomsky? As a scholar and shaper of young minds he is deplorable. He is a Jew hating Jew who views the Israelis as Nazis and their behavior will result in "a final solution from which few will escape." His country has made him rich and famous although he discerns no good in the sea of prosperity around him. His is a most disturbed, jealous, and depressed mind. Chomsky has tied his life's disappointments to officials in Washington. If the linguist would merely be content to hate himself rather than project his feelings upon the government, we would all be much better off. Phrase from "Chomsky and the Cold War" by Thomas M. Nichols, p. 48. Nichols, p.61. Argument made by Eli Lehrer in "Chomsky and the Media: A Kept Press and a Manipulated People." p.82 Recounted by John Williamson in "Chomsky, Language, World War II and Me." pp. 236-241 Chomsky quoted on page 94 of Paul Bogdanor's "Chomsky's War Against Israel." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Wed Nov 10 14:00:26 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:00:26 -0500 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks Message-ID: Oh No!!!! Way overly simplistic. Also, you are comparing apples to bushels of wheat. >However Confucianism vs Daoism/Taoism is rather different from what >you would get in the west. Confucianism is somewhat similar to what >you would get if western cultural conservatives allied themselves with >nazi/commies, in the way that the commies are prone to imagine >conservatives have supposedly allied themselves with nazis. Taoism >somewhat similar to what you would get if anarcho capitalists allied >themselves with pagans and wiccans... WOW! I'll skip the obvious comments and ask, In which centuries are you suggesting this applies? Now? If so, you are clearly NOT talking about mainland China. Please re-define the centuries/epochs during which you believe this to have been true, and then maybe I'll bother responding. -TD From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 10 14:03:13 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:03:13 -0500 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <41928171.4040006@students.bbk.ac.uk> References: <41892D7C.6030309@echeque.com> <41928171.4040006@students.bbk.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 9:00 PM +0000 11/10/04, ken wrote: >Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom >would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in >battle. Yeah, but the zulus had the wrong end of, well, the stick. Take a look at, again, Hanson's "Carnage and Culture" for a nice discussion of the Zulus in particular, and exactly why 18 brits in a hastily constructed breastwork could hold off several thousand, killing most. Cheers, RAH ------ -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Wed Nov 10 17:40:45 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 20:40:45 -0500 Subject: Calif. settles electronic voting suit against Diebold for $2.6M Message-ID: Ths San Francisco Chronicle Calif. settles electronic voting suit against Diebold for $2.6M RACHEL KONRAD, AP Technology Writer Wednesday, November 10, 2004 (11-10) 15:31 PST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced Wednesday a $2.6 million settlement with Diebold Inc., resolving a lawsuit alleging that the company sold the state and several counties shoddy voting equipment. Although critics characterized the settlement as a slap on the wrist, Diebold also agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to partially reimburse Alameda, San Diego and other counties for the cost of paper backup ballots, ink and other supplies in last week's election. California's secretary of state banned the use of one type of Diebold machine in May, after problems with the machines disenfranchised an unknown number of voters in the March primary. Faulty equipment forced at least 6,000 of 316,000 voters in Alameda County, just east of San Francisco, to use backup paper ballots instead of the paperless voting terminals. In San Diego County, a power surge resulted in hundreds of touch-screens that wouldn't start when the polls opened, forcing election officials to turn voters away from the polls. According to the settlement, the North Canton, Ohio-based company must also upgrade ballot tabulation software that Los Angeles County and others used Nov. 2. Diebold must also strengthen the security of its paperless voting machines and computer servers and promise never to connect voting systems to outside networks. "There is no more fundamental right in our democracy than the right to vote and have your vote counted," Lockyer said in a statement. "In making false claims about its equipment, Diebold treated that right, and the taxpayers who bought its machines, cavalierly. This settlement holds Diebold accountable and helps ensure the future quality and security of its voting systems." The tentative settlement could be approved as soon as Dec. 10. The original lawsuit was filed a year ago by Seattle-based electronic voting critic Bev Harris and Sacramento-based activist Jim March, who characterized the $2.6 million settlement as "peanuts." March, a whistle blower who filed suit on behalf of California taxpayers, could receive as much as $75,000 because of the settlement. But he said the terms don't require Diebold to overhaul its election servers -- which have had problems in Washington's King County and elsewhere -- to guard them from hackers, software bugs or other failures. The former computer system administrator was also upset that the state announced the deal so quickly. Several activist groups, computer scientists and federal researchers are analyzing Nov. 2 election data, looking for evidence of vote rigging or unintentional miscounts in hundreds of counties nationwide that used touch-screen terminals. Results are expected by early December. "This settlement will shut down a major avenue of investigation before evidence starts trickling in," March said. "It's very premature." A Diebold executive said the settlement would allow the company to spend more money on improving software and avoid "the distraction and cost of prolonged litigation." Diebold earnings plunged 5 cents per share in the third quarter because of the California litigation, which could cost an additional 1 cent per share in the current quarter. Diebold shares closed Wednesday at $53.20, up 1.22 percent from Tuesday in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. "We've worked closely with California officials to come to an agreement that allows us to continue to move forward," Diebold senior vice president Thomas W. Swidarski said in a statement. "While we believe Diebold has strong responses to the claims raised in the suit, we are primarily interested in building an effective and trusting relationship with California election officials." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk Wed Nov 10 12:53:52 2004 From: bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk (ken) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 20:53:52 +0000 Subject: Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal In-Reply-To: <1099545605.29415.5.camel@mesmer.rant-central.com> References: <1099545605.29415.5.camel@mesmer.rant-central.com> Message-ID: <41927FE0.6020802@students.bbk.ac.uk> Roy M. Silvernail wrote: > On Wed, 2004-11-03 at 23:30 -0500, R.A. Hettinga wrote: > >> >> >>Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal >>It's Time to Reconfigure the United States > > > Chuckle-worthy, if not outright funny. Interestingly, I could see a > liberal making exactly the same case, but without the ad hominem > attacks. You mean like http://www.fuckthesouth.com/ ? Funnier, more factual, and a damn sight more ad hominem. From bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk Wed Nov 10 13:00:33 2004 From: bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk (ken) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 21:00:33 +0000 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <41892D7C.6030309@echeque.com> References: <41892D7C.6030309@echeque.com> Message-ID: <41928171.4040006@students.bbk.ac.uk> James A. Donald wrote: > So far the Pentagon has > shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand, > which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire > suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a > quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears. Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in battle. From admin at staffadministrator.com Wed Nov 10 22:40:58 2004 From: admin at staffadministrator.com (Administrator) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 04 06:40:58 GMT Subject: ADV: Staff Announcement Message-ID: Attention All Nonprofit Organizations: Members and Staff You Must Respond By 5 P.M. Friday, November 12, 2004. Through a special arrangement, Avtech Direct is offering a limited allotment of BRAND NEW, top of-the-line, name-brand desktop computers at more than 50% off MSRP to all Nonprofit Members and Staff who respond to this message before 5 P.M., Friday, November 12, 2004 All desktop computers are brand-new packed in their original boxes, and come with a full manufacturer's warranty plus a 100% satisfaction guarantee. These professional grade Desktops are fully equipped with 2005 next generation technology, making these the best performing computers money can buy. 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Friday, November 12, 2004. and we will hold the desktops you request on will call. 4. You are not obligated in any way. 5. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed. 6. Ask for Department C. Call Avtech Direct 1-800-795-8466 before 5 P.M. Friday, November 12, 2004 Visit our website at http://www.avtechdirect-nonprofits.com If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, please go to http://www.computeradvice.org/unsubscribelink.asp Avtech Direct 22647 Ventura Blvd. Suite 374 Woodland Hills, CA 91364 From ericm at lne.com Thu Nov 11 06:50:56 2004 From: ericm at lne.com (Eric Murray) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 06:50:56 -0800 Subject: nyms being attacked by malware In-Reply-To: <93e78886fe6b61fe022e1dd43d48f079@remailer.privacy.at>; from mixmaster@remailer.privacy.at on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 10:16:11AM +0100 References: <93e78886fe6b61fe022e1dd43d48f079@remailer.privacy.at> Message-ID: <20041111065056.A3026@slack.lne.com> On Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 10:16:11AM +0100, privacy.at Anonymous Remailer wrote: > I've noticed a very high increase of incoming virii and malicious code of > various sorts to one of my nyms. Since the nym is not used anywhere > publically I really wonder if these are deliberate attacks to try to > compromise the machines of people using nyms to protect their identity. Is > this something that's a known strategy somehow? Obviously it could also be > that the nym was previously used by someone else online and that's partly > why it would be interesting to hear other's comments on this. Spammers probe SMTP servers for valid names using dictionary attacks. It's difficult to set up an SMTP server that will accept mail for an address and not also give up the information that the address is valid. From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Thu Nov 11 06:37:42 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 09:37:42 -0500 Subject: Arafat's last thoughts... Message-ID: "Damn! Just when this scrabbly beard was finally starting to grow in!" From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Thu Nov 11 06:48:57 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 09:48:57 -0500 Subject: The Full Chomsky Message-ID: Now I certainly don't agree with a lot of Chomsky, bvut this dude clearly has an axe to grind. For instance, "After 9/11, he was more concerned about a fictitious famine in Afghanistan than about the nearly 3,000 incinerated in The World Trade Center attacks." What a fucking idiot. The 3000 were already dead, the 'famine' was about-to-be. A Chomsky nut could say Chomsky helped avert complete catastrophe (though there apparently was a decent amount of famine after all, but nothing like 3MM.) But this misses the point. Mr Donald will no doubt chime in yammering on about Chomsky's "lies", but that also misses the point. Chomsky makes very strong arguments supporting a very different view of world events, and he often quotes primary and secondary sources. If you are going to disagree with Chomsky (and in many areas I do), then you've got to actually get off your lazy ass and look up the sources and do some f-in' homework. Only then are you qualified to refute him. -TD >From: "R.A. Hettinga" >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: The Full Chomsky >Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:20:43 -0500 > > > > MensNewsDaily.com > > >The Full Chomsky > > November 10, 2004 > by Bernard Chapin > > Question: How could a linguist working as a college professor have >omniscient insight regarding the inner-workings of the American government >and exclusive knowledge concerning the hidden motivations of every >government official in our nation's history? > > Answer: There's no way he could. > > Yet, such common sense does little to refute the fact that Noam Chomsky >is >one of the ten most quoted figures in the humanities. He has published >screed after screed deconstructing American foreign policy positions and >never has given any indication that his insinuations may somehow be limited >by lack of connections or first hand evidence (or, in some cases, any >evidence whatsoever). Since the 1960s, he has fully played the role of >Wizard Professor and created an entire library's worth of "pseudo-academic >smog" . > > Until recently, there have been few antidotes for his morass of >accusations and allegations, but now we have The Anti-Chomsky Reader, >edited by David Horowitz and Peter Collier, which offers purchasers the >service of deconstructing the deconstructor. Once you've finished reading >it, you'll be highly grateful as Chomsky's lies are so pervasive and >counter-intuitive that it's a wonder anyone but the paranoid ever read him >in the first place. > > The Anti-Chomsky Reader is a compilation of essays outlining and refuting >the travesties that the M.I.T. linguist has passed off as truth. It does >not confine itself to politics alone. Substantial space is given to the >analysis of his scholarly publications in linguistics. These are addressed >in two chapters called, "A Corrupted Linguistics" and "Chomsky, Language, >World War II and Me." In the area of his chosen field, many have given him >an intellectual pass but this work does not. His linguistic ideas may be as >spurious as his political tomes. All sources give him initial credit for >his core academic assumption about the "biological basis of grammar," but >it seems that he has engaged in little in the way of scientifically >verifiable work over the course of the last fifty years. Chomsky's creative >terminology dazzles admirers but his new theories inevitably amount to >nothing > > Overall, the compendium leaves no region of his reputation left >unexamined. Anti-Americanism is central to his worldview. He never sees >this nation as being superior to any other. At best, we mirror the >pathologies of totalitarian states. We can discern this clearly in Stephen >Morris's "Whitewashing Dictatorship in Communist Vietnam and Cambodia." The >author sums up Chomsky's fetish for defending the Vietnamese and Democratic >Kampuchea aptly when he argues that, > > "As a radical political ideologue, he is crippled by an intense emotional >commitment to the cause of anti-Americanism. Operating on the principle >that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend,' he wholeheartedly embraced the >struggle of two of the world's most ruthlessly brutal regimes." > > Chomsky's hopes for mankind are vested in murderous revolutionaries and >not in his own nation. It is our nation, and never the Khmer Rouge, which >gives its citizens the freedom to vote, the freedom to trade, and, most >obviously, the freedom to spread the type of sedition that Noam Chomsky has >been disseminating for close to 40 years. > > He does not limit himself to Asia, however. The professor has constantly >minimized the acts of many totalitarian states. Chomsky regarded Soviet >control of eastern Europe, when compared to the American presence in >Vietnam, as being "practically a paradise" We see a man who cares far more >about Holocaust deniers than the six million who were exterminated in gas >chambers or desolate Russian ravines. > > After 9/11, he was more concerned about a fictitious famine in >Afghanistan >than about the nearly 3,000 incinerated in The World Trade Center attacks. >He predicted that the toppling of the Taliban would result in 3 to 4 >million famine deaths. When no such famine occurred, he did not issue an >apology or retraction. He simply chose to say nothing. > > There is not much about this world famous ideologue that is genuine. He >has ardently defended the right of free speech for anti-Semitic, >Holocaust-denying cranks like Robert Faurisson and Pierre Guillaume but >chose not to say anything, or sign any petitions, supporting Soviet >intellectuals relegated to the gulag due to their ideas. > > Chomsky's self-proclaimed political orientation is preposterous. He is >enthralled with the socialist ideal but describes himself as a libertarian. >If this were true he would be the first libertarian in history who hated >capitalism and the free market. He also claims to be an anarchist but seems >to love nothing more than strong governments which redistribute the wealth >of its citizens and coerce its people into complying with the socialist >ideal. He is so deeply repulsed by our nation, and so entirely lacking in >perspective, that he holds Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Truman to be war >criminals but Pol Pot, who murdered 25 percent of all Cambodians, as >creating "constructive achievements for much of the population." He has an >easy answer for those who dare argue with him. We do not understand as we >have false consciousness . Only he, the magician, can know the true >workings of the American state. > > Stylistically, Chomsky's works are written with an obfuscating hand and >penned in the language of the opaque. The mechanics of his style: "As a >strategy for creating a Potemkin village of intellectual authenticity, >[are] brilliant; as scholarship it is charlatanism." Chomsky litters his >work with footnotes yet the footnotes are a parlor game because they often >lead to more footnotes citing other assertions he made in earlier works. > > The most egregious passage of them all occurs in John Williamson's essay, >"Chomsky, Language, World War II and Me." It concerns Chomsky's interview >with The New Yorker magazine where he is quoted as saying to one of his >classes that Russian archives proved that Britain and the United States >supported Nazi armies in the hopes of holding back the Soviet's eastern >advance. When questioned about the quotation by Williamson, Chomsky >dismissed the reporter as having manufactured his statement and that she >had printed "a ridiculous gossip column." He then, even though he claimed >not to have said what he did, referred Williamson to a source that did not >support his assertion in the least. Chomsky's statement about the reporter >turned out to be slanderous as the lecture that the reporter quoted from is >available online via videotape. In it, the linguist says exactly what the >reporter says he did. When confronted with his mendacity, Chomsky changed >tactics and pronounced how absurd it was for someone to quote from his >lecture. The real absurdity is that anyone should take him seriously at >all. > > In case one thinks that this was an isolated incident, Chomsky appears to >have learned nothing from The New Yorker scandal as he lied last month in a >speech at the University of Michigan when he said that the United States >had planned an attack on Japan before Pearl Harbor. No evidence was offered >to support his claim as no evidence exists. > > What can one say about Chomsky? As a scholar and shaper of young minds he >is deplorable. He is a Jew hating Jew who views the Israelis as Nazis and >their behavior will result in "a final solution from which few will >escape." His country has made him rich and famous although he discerns no >good in the sea of prosperity around him. His is a most disturbed, jealous, >and depressed mind. Chomsky has tied his life's disappointments to >officials in Washington. If the linguist would merely be content to hate >himself rather than project his feelings upon the government, we would all >be much better off. > > Phrase from "Chomsky and the Cold War" by Thomas M. Nichols, p. 48. > > Nichols, p.61. > > Argument made by Eli Lehrer in "Chomsky and the Media: A Kept Press and a >Manipulated People." p.82 > > Recounted by John Williamson in "Chomsky, Language, World War II and Me." >pp. 236-241 > > Chomsky quoted on page 94 of Paul Bogdanor's "Chomsky's War Against >Israel." > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From mixmaster at remailer.privacy.at Thu Nov 11 01:16:11 2004 From: mixmaster at remailer.privacy.at (privacy.at Anonymous Remailer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 10:16:11 +0100 (CET) Subject: nyms being attacked by malware Message-ID: <93e78886fe6b61fe022e1dd43d48f079@remailer.privacy.at> I've noticed a very high increase of incoming virii and malicious code of various sorts to one of my nyms. Since the nym is not used anywhere publically I really wonder if these are deliberate attacks to try to compromise the machines of people using nyms to protect their identity. Is this something that's a known strategy somehow? Obviously it could also be that the nym was previously used by someone else online and that's partly why it would be interesting to hear other's comments on this. From jamesd at echeque.com Thu Nov 11 11:02:52 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:02:52 -0800 Subject: The Full Chomsky In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4193B75C.5080604@echeque.com> -- Tyler Durden wrote: > What a fucking idiot. The 3000 were already dead, the 'famine' was > about-to-be. A Chomsky nut could say Chomsky helped avert complete > catastrophe [...] > > But this misses the point. Mr Donald will no doubt chime in > yammering on about Chomsky's "lies", but that also misses the point. > Chomsky makes very strong arguments supporting a very different view > of world events, and he often quotes primary and secondary sources. No he does not quote primary and secondary sources. He purports to paraphrase primary and secondary sources, When he actually quotes, as he rarely does, he quotes only very small fragments in elaborate and contrived false context, often using made up quotes which resemble, but differ from the original in vital ways. The "famine" in Afghanistan is a case in point, which has already been discussed in the newsgroups. The sources in original context did not make the claims he attributed to them. I have provided a paragraph by paragraph comparison of source materials with Chomsky's claims about source materials for the issue of the Khmer Rouge - see http://www.jim.com/chomsdis.htm, but the same story could be written, and indeed has been written, of everything he writes. If you complain that his lies in support of the Khmer Rouge are old news, I will do a similar number on his more recent lies about the Afghan famine. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 7d/sRxIb8lHa8J3zbt56pbk45oa+nV8y90GgLfGL 496eTnLDCz/ALgUZmdM3tMRnhmRw8AcO00m0wSerI From jya at pipeline.com Thu Nov 11 14:21:18 2004 From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:21:18 -0800 Subject: The Full Chomsky In-Reply-To: <4193B75C.5080604@echeque.com> References: Message-ID: But James, it is a no-brainer to refute an argument with selective use of an opponents words, phrases, quotations, arguments and beliefs. Debaters are trained and hired to do just this as are propagandists, spin doctors, psychiatrists, journalists, scholars, historians, pr pros, courtiers, literary critics, philosophers, logicians, priests, lovers, indeed most of language and discourse is made up of such mongrelian fabrications. Chomsky, the linguist, knows this better than most, and certainly more than you, an amateur by comparison. He makes no apology for his attacks on apologists for the powerful, he is merely better at it than they are. Not much is worth doing more than helping lance the giants' scrota. You could learn from his linguistic studies and his prowess at detumescing opponents surely more than you can learn by attempting to ramrod him, for you are sure to do so at a level much more superficial than his multi-level critiques and in the process miss the bulk of his argumentative substantiation -- as demonstrated by the biased, blind, vacuousness posted by Dr. Hettinga. Dr. Hettinga is having his fun posting a cornicopia of light-weight straw-men disputation, aw shit call it what it is, lazy-minded inarticulate like that spewed all across Blueland by preachers of blind faith in yelling the same old. Chomsky is one smart SOB, his serious critics readily agree he is surely the intelligent man in the USA, and they learn from him far more than they learn from those who think as they do: beware the adoring choir's roundheels. From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Thu Nov 11 13:19:30 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:19:30 -0500 Subject: Cell Phone Jammer? Message-ID: Anyone know from first-hand experience about cellphone jammers? I need... 1) A nice little portable, and 2) A higher-powered one that can black out cell phone calls within, say, 50 to 100 feet of a moving vehicle. -TD From rah at shipwright.com Thu Nov 11 13:20:59 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:20:59 -0500 Subject: E-Mail Authentication Will Not End Spam, Panelists Say Message-ID: The Washington Post washingtonpost.com E-Mail Authentication Will Not End Spam, Panelists Say By Jonathan Krim Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, November 11, 2004; Page E01 For consumers and businesses increasingly shaken by the growing onslaught of unwanted e-mail and the computer viruses and other nefarious hacking spam can bring, any hope for quick relief was soundly dashed yesterday during a government-hosted gathering of technology experts. Several executives and academics speaking at a forum sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission said criminals are already steps ahead of a major initiative by e-mail providers to counter those problems by creating a system to verify senders of e-mail. In theory, such an authentication system would make it harder for spammers to disguise their identities and locations in an attempt to avoid being shut down or prosecuted. But a majority of spam is launched by "zombies," or infected personal computers that are controlled by remote spammers. E-mail from a zombie looks as if it is coming from a legitimate source -- because it is. The owner of that source is simply unaware that his or her computer has been commandeered. "We'll be lucky if we solve 50 percent of the problem" with e-mail authentication, said Pavni Diwanji, chairman of MailFrontier Inc., a Silicon Valley provider of e-mail security systems. By some estimates, the problem is rapidly becoming a crisis. In the first half of this year, an average of 30,000 computers a day were turned into zombies, according to the computer security firm Symantec Corp. In addition to serving up unwanted or fraudulent messages, spam is used to deliver viruses and other malicious software code that can allow hackers to capture private data such as credit card or bank account numbers from personal computers. Hackers and spammers also have been able to exploit a lack of awareness among many computer users, tricking them into providing their passwords or account information in response to e-mails that appear to be coming from legitimate financial institutions or retailers, a tactic known as phishing. The information is then rapidly sold on a black market heavily populated by elements of organized crime in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere. As incidents of the resulting identity fraud mount, "we're losing consumer confidence in this medium," said R. David Lewis, vice president of Digital Impact Inc., which provides bulk e-mail marketing services to large companies. Lewis and others said that if the public reaches a tipping point at which Internet commerce is no longer trusted, the economic consequences will be severe. Despite the authentication effort's shortcomings, none of yesterday's speakers suggested abandoning it, because it is seen as an essential building block for other solutions. But the forum demonstrated in stark terms the depth and complexity of the problem. Any e-mail authentication system, for example, would check that the block of Internet addresses assigned to an e-mail provider includes the specific numeric address of a sender of a piece of e-mail. Thus, a red flag would go up if a message seeming to come from bob at xyz-123.net is actually not coming from a computer that uses the xyz-123.net mail service. But Scott Chasin, chief technology officer of e-mail security firm MX Logic Inc., said the underlying Internet system that houses the necessary data is insecure and can be tricked by hackers. Chasin said the problem has been known for 10 years, but industry and Internet standard-setters have been unable or unwilling to fix the problem by encrypting the data. Getting agreement on an authentication system has been similarly difficult and is partly why the FTC held the summit. The major e-mail providers, America Online Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and EarthLink Inc., are still testing and pushing various plans. The Internet group assigned to endorse a standard disbanded recently, unable to resolve discord and uncertainty over whether licensing rights asserted by Microsoft would cut out a broad swath of organizations that use so-called open-source software. Chasin and other panelists also said the basic operating systems that power computers -- the most dominant of which is Microsoft Windows -- remain too vulnerable to hackers. He said a worm was recently discovered that lodges itself in Windows files and goes to work when a computer user tries to access the Web site of his or her bank. The malicious code automatically redirects the Web browser to a fake page that looks like the real thing. In this scenario, the user has not been duped by a fake phishing e-mail. Instead, the vulnerability in the operating system has allowed the code to redirect the user's browser to a phony page where a hacker can capture the user's name and password. Still, panelists insisted authentication is a vital first step. After that, they said, could come a system that evaluates the "reputation" of senders, perhaps using a process that marks good e-mail with an electronic seal of approval. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Wed Nov 10 19:24:22 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:24:22 +1300 Subject: This Memorable Day In-Reply-To: <41928171.4040006@students.bbk.ac.uk> Message-ID: ken writes: >James A. Donald wrote: >> So far the Pentagon has >> shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand, >> which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire >> suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a >> quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears. > >Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom >would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in >battle. You also had to look at what they were up against. Witness the complete massacre at Isandlwana (the classic Zulu bull-and-horns overran the British camp because the troops were too far away from their ammunition to resupply, no doubt copying Elphinstone's tactic in Afghanistan) vs. post-Isandlwana use of Gatling batteries and massed field artillery (some of which was converted Naval artillery), e.g. Ulundi, where post-battle reports were of piles of Zulu dead mown down by Gatlings. The British only thought that the Zulus were just semi-naked savages until Isandlwana. Peter. From dgerow at afflictions.org Thu Nov 11 22:07:48 2004 From: dgerow at afflictions.org (Damian Gerow) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 01:07:48 -0500 Subject: Cell Phone Jammer? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20041112060748.GS8230@afflictions.org> Thus spake Tyler Durden (camera_lumina at hotmail.com) [11/11/04 16:25]: : Anyone know from first-hand experience about cellphone jammers? They're legal in France. That's all I know. (If you find anything out, please post it to the list. I'm also interested.) From dgerow at afflictions.org Thu Nov 11 22:16:39 2004 From: dgerow at afflictions.org (Damian Gerow) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 01:16:39 -0500 Subject: E-Mail Authentication Will Not End Spam, Panelists Say In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20041112061639.GT8230@afflictions.org> Thus spake R.A. Hettinga (rah at shipwright.com) [11/11/04 16:29]: : Several executives and academics speaking at a forum sponsored by the : Federal Trade Commission said criminals are already steps ahead of a major : initiative by e-mail providers to counter those problems by creating a : system to verify senders of e-mail. : : In theory, such an authentication system would make it harder for spammers : to disguise their identities and locations in an attempt to avoid being : shut down or prosecuted. (Having watched the IETF group for a while, and spent much time fighting spam...) No person who is pushing for SPF believes that it will reduce the volume of spam.[1] What SPF *does* do is make it easier to track it down -- the From address will actually match the domain it was sent from. This makes the Abuse department's job *much* easier, as in theory, any spam complaint you receive about your domain will be *from* your domain. While this doesn't always mean you have a spammer in your midst, it /does/ mean that the piece of mail in question /did/ come from your networks, hence it is something you can track down without worry about wasting time that would be better spent elsewhere. Arguably, this doesn't gain the anti-spam fighters anything, as the spam still comes from somewhere. But if you lay out the seriousness of the problem to your subscriber, the chances of a repeat offense (which, ideally, would result in account termination) drop to very close to zero. This is also something that ISPs can combat internally, such as forcing SMTP authentication (which, granted, opens up a whole other bucket of worms), not allowing outbound SMTP connections (unless explicitly granted), or having only a web interface to e-mail (thus blocking all outbound SMTP connects, even to their own mail servers, period). The 'criminals' aren't necessarily 'steps ahead' -- they're just working within the SPF framework, and doing exactly what SPF wanted them to do. SPF is *one* step towards limiting the volume of spam, but it in and of itself does not. There are a great number of other tools that, when combined with SPF, can and do make a difference in the spam volume being sent. Yes, each tool has drawbacks, and I'm not going to claim otherwise. But for the 95th percentile, they won't really notice a difference. Until their account is cut off, that is. [1] Any person who claims otherwise just plain doesn't understand SPF or its goals. Unfortunately, a few people have claimed that SPF will cut down on the spam volume, and this take was snapped up by the media and subsequently pushed out as the primary goal of SPF. It is, AFAIK, generally agreed that to cut down on spam volume, we need a whole different protocol from SMTP. From jamesd at echeque.com Fri Nov 12 02:49:12 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 02:49:12 -0800 Subject: The Full Chomsky In-Reply-To: References: <4193B75C.5080604@echeque.com> Message-ID: <419424A8.19066.5171E273@localhost> -- On 11 Nov 2004 at 14:21, John Young wrote: > Chomsky, [...] He makes no apology for his attacks on > apologists for the powerful, he is merely better at it than > they are. Wherever the master's boot smashes into the face of a child, we can rely on Chomsky to deny the master's crimes, while simultaneously justifying those crimes, and demonizing the child as a CIA agent. Always Chomsky is on the side of evil, of hatred, of the torturer, and against the torturer's victim, as he was on the issue of Pol Pot's Cambodia, when he spread and endorsed the lies of issued by Pol Pot's regime. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG w8wf5p0VKgycj9Ld3q9wBJikPRDq7/6mG2fem3Oi 481l46Enne+sD9gu1SutixMgpaZcYscUEn7FHAJPG From jamesd at echeque.com Fri Nov 12 02:54:35 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 02:54:35 -0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: <07d401c4c89d$7de99fe0$0200a8c0@em.noip.com> Message-ID: <419425EB.3502.5176CFB7@localhost> -- James Donald: > > However Confucianism vs Daoism/Taoism is rather different > > from what you would get in the west. Confucianism is > > somewhat similar to what you would get if western cultural > > conservatives allied themselves with nazi/commies, in the > > way that the commies are prone to imagine conservatives > > have supposedly allied themselves with nazis. Taoism > > somewhat similar to what you would get if anarcho > > capitalists allied themselves with pagans and wiccans... "Enzo Michelangeli" > Actually, that doesn't apply to any century. The ancient > philosophical school that inspired Mao Zedong was actually > Legalism, which provided the theoretic foundations to the > absolutist rule of Qin Shi Huangdi In my original post, I said that legalism was pretty much the same thing as communism/nazism, so you are not disagreeing with me, merely re - raising a point I had already raised. However, whereas legalism is much the same thing communism/nazism, confucianism is legalism moderated by conservatism > (to whom Mao liked to compare himself). Mao, as many other > Chinese reformers and writers of the early XX Century, hated > Confucianism as symbol of China's "ancien regime" and decay. And the commies hated the nazis, as well as other commies slightly different from themselves, and the nazis hated other nazis slightly different from themselves. The conflict between confucianism and legalism does not imply the difference betweent the two is very large, though it is a good deal larger than the miniscule difference between communism and nazism. > By comparison, Confucianism was remarkably enlightened, "by comparison". Well most things are pretty enlightened by comparison with communism/legalism/nazism. I am less impressed by this fact than you are. Confucianism is despotic and oppressive. Even if confucians do not bury scholars alives, they suppress their opponents by means less spectacular, but in the long run comparably effective. China stagnated because no thought other than official thought occurred. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG HNIR6uGQUMyllJLev2ryOe5xvv1qtUyvgvnFXy4J 4HfiAds3UvnSj3hJTTbW4uTzwvqIlszbh7H0gilkM From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Fri Nov 12 06:38:44 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:38:44 -0500 Subject: Cell Phone Jammer? Message-ID: Well, I googled up a whole batch, but I was wondering if anyone had had their grubby little hands on one of these things and could recommend one. Also, I know the standards are very different in Europe as compared to the US. And also, does a 'regular' jammer also jam CDMA signals? (CDMA was actually invented by Heddy Lamar to avoid jamming!) -TD >From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Cell Phone Jammer? >Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:08:18 +1300 > >"Tyler Durden" writes: > > >Anyone know from first-hand experience about cellphone jammers? > > > >I need... > > > >1) A nice little portable, and > >Try the SH066PL, a nice portable that looks exactly like a cellphone, it's >one >of the few portables I know of. > > >2) A higher-powered one that can black out cell phone calls within, say, >50 > >to 100 feet of a moving vehicle. > >Google is your friend, there are tons of these around, with varying degrees >of >sophistication. These are definitely not portable, taking several amps at >6-12V to power them. > >None of them are exactly cheap. > >Peter. From jamesd at echeque.com Fri Nov 12 09:41:20 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:41:20 -0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <41948540.28638.52EB3281@localhost> -- On 12 Nov 2004 at 9:51, Tyler Durden wrote: > As far as I'm concerned, what Kung Tze does ca 5 BCE is > really consdolidate and codify a large and diverse body of > practices and beliefs under a fairly unified set of ethical > ideas. In that sense, the Legalists were merely a refocusing > of the same general body of mores, etc...into a somewhat > different direction. One might call it a competing school to > Kung Tze de Jiao Xun, but I would argue only because, at that > time, Kung Tze "authority" as it's known today was by no > means completely established. But in a sense, the early > legalists weren't a HECK of a lot different from Confucious. Which is a commie nazi way of saying that the the Confucians were not a heck of a lot different from the legalists - and the legalists set up an early version of the standard highly centralized totalitarian terror state, which doubtless appears quite enlightened to the likes of Tyler Durden. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG k9Dumf7XMAhNCRDuxNd2aKQtrN2PqD2p2l3TDcjw 4SMVqw0LGnr3oZKU5v0WQpooJ4tKHdZvNiokzj2e9 From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Fri Nov 12 06:51:26 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:51:26 -0500 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks Message-ID: Ah. A fellow knowledgeable China-hand. As far as I'm concerned, what Kung Tze does ca 5 BCE is really consdolidate and codify a large and diverse body of practices and beliefs under a fairly unified set of ethical ideas. In that sense, the Legalists were merely a refocusing of the same general body of mores, etc...into a somewhat different direction. One might call it a competing school to Kung Tze de Jiao Xun, but I would argue only because, at that time, Kung Tze "authority" as it's known today was by no means completely established. But in a sense, the early legalists weren't a HECK of a lot different from Confucious. As for Mr Donald's ramblings, the are in which they most closely approach reality is where filial obedience to the emperor is developed as an extension to his ethical system, but even here there are significant differences. For one, that filial loyalty is not portrayed as being ultimately political, but almost an extension of family (which is why the emperor was known as the "Son of Heaven"). Also, and this is fairly Cypherpunkish, unlike in the west the notin of Emperor was not ultimately a genetic one. That is, there's a "Mandate of Heaven", and when the mandate of heaven is removed from an Emperor and his line, it's time to bum-rush his show, which was done on a regular basis in China. As for the Taoists this comment by Mr Donald is almost completely nonsensical. -TD >From: "Enzo Michelangeli" >To: >Subject: Re: China's wealthy bypass the banks >Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 17:53:07 +0800 > >Re: China's wealthy bypass the banks >Tyler Durden >Wed, 10 Nov 2004 14:56:08 -0800 > > > Oh No!!!! > > > > > > Way overly simplistic. Also, you are comparing apples to bushels of > > wheat. > > > > [James Donald:] > > However Confucianism vs Daoism/Taoism is rather different from what > > you would get in the west. Confucianism is somewhat similar to what > > you would get if western cultural conservatives allied themselves with > > nazi/commies, in the way that the commies are prone to imagine > > conservatives have supposedly allied themselves with nazis. Taoism > > somewhat similar to what you would get if anarcho capitalists allied > > themselves with pagans and wiccans... > > > > WOW! I'll skip the obvious comments and ask, In which centuries are > > you suggesting this applies? Now? If so, you are clearly NOT talking > > about mainland China. Please re-define the centuries/epochs during > > which you believe this to have been true, and then maybe I'll bother > > responding. > >Actually, that doesn't apply to any century. The ancient philosophical >school that inspired Mao Zedong was actually Legalism, which provided the >theoretic foundations to the absolutist rule of Qin Shi Huangdi (to whom >Mao liked to compare himself). Mao, as many other Chinese reformers and >writers of the early XX Century, hated Confucianism as symbol of China's >"ancien regime" and decay. Which is why the campaign against Zhou En-lai >of 1974-75 had an anti-Confucian theme (see e.g. the posters at >http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/plpk.html ) > >Legalists and Qin Shi Huangdi himself were pretty nasty types, and their >domination saw widespread confiscation of books, ridiculously harsh rule >(arriving late to work could bring the death penalty!) and large-scale >assassination or rivals: several Confucian philosophers were buried alive. >The ruthless methods of the Qin dinasty ultimately resulted in its >downfall: it only lasted one and half decade (221 - 206 BC), half of what >Maoism did. > >By comparison, Confucianism was remarkably enlightened, which is also why >Voltaire expressed a good opinion of it. Some Confucian philosophers like >Mencius (372-289 AC) were early theorists of people's sovereignty: > >"The people are the most important element in a nation; the spirits of the >land and grain are the next; the sovereign is the lightest [...] When a >prince endangers the altars of the spirits of the land and grain, he is >changed, and another appointed in his place." >[Mencius, Book 7: http://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius27.html ] > >...and of the right to tyrannicide, justified by the loss of legitimacy >brought by misrule: > >"The king said, 'May a minister then put his sovereign to death?' Mencius >said, 'He who outrages the benevolence proper to his nature, is called a >robber; he who outrages righteousness, is called a ruffian. The robber and >ruffian we call a mere fellow." >[Mencius, Book 1: http://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius04.html ] > >Enzo From jamesd at echeque.com Fri Nov 12 09:51:35 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:51:35 -0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: <4194D96B.7070006@students.bbk.ac.uk> References: <419425EB.3502.5176CFB7@localhost> Message-ID: <419487A7.13813.52F49429@localhost> -- James A. Donald. > > China stagnated because no thought other than official > > thought occurred. On 12 Nov 2004 at 15:40, ken wrote: > And when was this stagnation? Started soon after the Qing dynasty > And what were the reasons China did not "stagnate" for the > previous thousand years? When the Song dynasty attempted to appoint important people, they did not necessarily become important people, and when it attempted to dismiss important people, they did not stay dismissed - The Song dynasty was unable or unwilling to give full effect to Confucianism. The local potentates conspicuously failed to behave in a properly confucian manner towards the emperor. The Song emperor could not reliably make local authorities obey him, which mean that his confucian mandarins could not reliably stop anyone other than themselves from thinking - much as today the communists are unable to stop anyone other than themselves from banking - in part because they are reluctant to apply the rather drastic measures that they have frequently threatened to apply. China prospered under Song Confucianism for pretty much the same reasons as it is today prospering under "communism". --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Yv20dIxJj7Vr+GPh5ImGfq9c3N7OLh5qda5/qc+9 49HxvL6pJJ1duyj3afDTLVoAjtWFWKz322go1DD9I From jamesd at echeque.com Fri Nov 12 10:00:31 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 10:00:31 -0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <419489BF.24399.52FCC140@localhost> -- On 12 Nov 2004 at 11:12, Tyler Durden wrote: > However, blaming the Chinese response to the Meiji > restoration on officially unsanctioned thought illustrates a > complete cluelessness about China. During that time Chinese > intellectuals (which at the time meant practically anyone who > had any kind of an education) regularly debating notions of > "Ti Yung", or the tension between what is esentially Chinese > vs what's useful from the Western World (and by the 1860s it > was starting to become clear that the west had some advanced > ideas). This is far more than a top-down dictatorship in the > Stalinist sense, That is the revisionist version - that china was a free and capitalist society, therefore freedom is not enough to ensure modernity and industrialization - a proposition as ludicrous as similar accounts of more recently existent despotic states. China during that period was the classic exemplar of "oriental despotism", the place on which the idea is based. > just as the Cultural Revolution was far more than a bunch of > teenagers "obeying orders". But the Cultural Revolution was merely a bunch of teenagers obeying orders, merely the simulation of a mass movement, with mass compliance instead of mass initiative. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG A3r+IPhnwM5iwqn01H7AuV9g1K9PgqLsYSmZVb6P 4ewsr2ejzouasJCmgOSl3a3j3FucBkMACrPcAsosX From jamesd at echeque.com Fri Nov 12 10:11:09 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 10:11:09 -0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: References: <4194D96B.7070006@students.bbk.ac.uk> Message-ID: <41948C3D.12635.53067DEF@localhost> -- ken wrote: > > And when was this stagnation? R.A. Hettinga wrote: > Two words: Ming Navy For those who need more words, the Qing Dynasty forbade ownership or building of ocean going vessels, on pain of death - the early equivalent of the iron curtain. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Iw7Wkew4KTQWmS2lvvIMd7+fR3rWAWagnqJ4cF0k 4Ee4DcVaw474VQFVRrwVAXR4XZSXiaNtRuKXYpsBo From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Fri Nov 12 08:12:48 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 11:12:48 -0500 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks Message-ID: Mr Donald's comments are almost completely nonsensical. or rather, they vaguely reflect some aspects of reality glimpsed through a really fucked up mirror while on bad crack. Probably Mr Donald is referring to something he saw on TV about China's response (or relative lack of response) to Japan's Meiji Restoration. China definitely did not respond to foregin ideas of industrialization and technology like the Japanese did. (Or at least, not at the time!) But it should be remembered that China did slowly and steadily evolve it's technology, and was well ahead of the western world until the Enlightenment. However, blaming the Chinese response to the Meiji restoration on officially unsanctioned thought illustrates a complete cluelessness about China. During that time Chinese intellectuals (which at the time meant practically anyone who had any kind of an education) regularly debating notions of "Ti Yung", or the tension between what is esentially Chinese vs what's useful from the Western World (and by the 1860s it was starting to become clear that the west had some advanced ideas). This is far more than a top-down dictatorship in the Stalinist sense, just as the Cultural Revolution was for more than a bunch of teenagers "obeying orders". In the end, a simplistic (though not clueless) argument could be made that China decided to remain "Chinese" rather than embrace what would have been a big disruption to their way of life. As it turned out, the 20th century (and the Japanese) more or less forced this new way of life on them. Hell..come to think of it, the closest precedent to the US invasion of Iraq might be the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. -TD >From: ken >To: cypherpunks >Subject: Re: China's wealthy bypass the banks >Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:40:27 +0000 > >>China stagnated because no thought other than >>official thought occurred. > >And when was this stagnation? > >And what were the reasons China did not "stagnate" for the previous >thousand years? From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 08:55:30 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 11:55:30 -0500 Subject: Patriot Fixes Message-ID: The Wall Street Journal November 12, 2004 COMMENTARY Patriot Fixes By BOB BARR November 12, 2004; Page A12 The most common charge levied against critics of the Patriot Act -- one that Alberto Gonzales, the new face of Justice, is likely to repeat in his days ahead -- is that they're "misinformed." Well, as a former U.S. attorney appointed by President Reagan, a former CIA lawyer and analyst, and a former Congressman who sat on the Judiciary Committee, I can go mano a mano with any law-enforcement or intelligence official on the facts. And the facts say that the Patriot Act needs to be reviewed and refined by Congress. Critics of the Act are not calling for full repeal. Only about a dozen of the 150 provisions need to be reformed; these, however, do pose singular threats to civil liberties. Here's how to bring them back in line with the Constitution. The two most significant problems are sections 213 and 215. The first authorized the use of delayed-notification search warrants, which allow the police to search and seize property from homes and businesses without contemporaneously telling the occupants. The Justice Department often claims that this new statutory "sneak and peek" power is innocuous, because the use of such warrants was commonplace before. Actually, the Patriot Act's sneak and peek authority is a whole new creature. Before, law enforcement certainly engaged in delayed-notification searches, especially in drug investigations. Importantly, this authority was available in terrorism investigations. Courts, however, put specific checks on these warrants: They could only be authorized when notice would threaten life or safety (including witness intimidation), endanger evidence, or incite flight from prosecution. It was a limited and extraordinary power. The Patriot Act greatly expanded potential justifications for delay. The criminal code now allows secret search warrants whenever notice would "jeopardize" an investigation or "delay" a trial -- extremely broad rationales. The exception has become the rule. Congress should remove that catch-all justification and impose strict monitoring on the use of these secret warrants. The other primary problem is the "library records" provision, Section 215. This amended a minor section of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which created a specialized court for the review of spy-hunting surveillance and search requests. This "business records" section allowed agents to seize personal records held by certain types of third-parties, including common carriers and vehicle rental companies. The Patriot Act made two changes to this relatively limited power: It allowed the seizure of any "tangible thing" from any third-party record holder (including medical, library, travel and genetic records); and it removed the particularized suspicion required in the original statute. Pre-2001, investigators had to show "specific and articulable facts" -- a standard much lower than criminal probable cause -- that a target was a spy or terrorist. Now, that already low standard has been lowered further. Agents simply certify to the intelligence court that the records desired are relevant to an investigation -- any investigation -- and the judge has no real authority to question that assertion, rendering judicial review meaningless. Reformers on the left and right want two fixes to this section. First, reinstall the individualized suspicion requirement. This reflects the Fourth Amendment notion that the government cannot invade privacy and gather evidence unless it has reasonable suspicion that one has done wrong. The proposed "fix" would retain the section's broad "tangible things" scope, but with a safeguard against abuse. The authorities would still be able to go to a criminal grand jury to demand the production of the same records, providing additional flexibility for counterterrorism work. Second, Congress should require additional reporting requirements. There are other refinements desired by the Act's critics. The new definition of domestic terrorism in Section 802 can be used by prosecutors to turn on an array of invasive new authorities, including broad asset-forfeiture powers, even when the underlying crime does not rise to the level of "terrorism." The preferred legislative reform keeps the definition, but links it to specific crimes like assassination or kidnapping. Reasonable critics of the expansive provisions of the Patriot Act, on both sides of the aisle and in both Houses, have introduced legislation that would implement these modest changes. Far from gutting the Act, these would secure the important powers of the law, but place modest limits on their use. For most of us who voted for the Act, what sealed the deal was the inclusion of provisions that would require us to take a sober second look at the most contentious provisions in the Act by the end of 2005, before reauthorizing them. That time is coming, and the Justice Department does not want to lose the emergency powers it won in the aftermath of 9/11. But Congress should resist its overtures, move forward on the sunsets, and enact additional Patriot fixes if it believes them needed. Mr. Barr is a former Republican congressman. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 09:30:08 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 12:30:08 -0500 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: <4194D96B.7070006@students.bbk.ac.uk> References: <419425EB.3502.5176CFB7@localhost> <4194D96B.7070006@students.bbk.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 3:40 PM +0000 11/12/04, ken wrote: >And when was this stagnation? Two words: Ming Navy Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 10:05:32 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:05:32 -0500 Subject: Keeping Better Track From Factory to Checkout Message-ID: The New York Times November 11, 2004 HOW IT WORKS Keeping Better Track From Factory to Checkout By BARNABY J. FEDER IKE investing or hitting a baseball, using radio scanners to wirelessly identify consumer products is simple in concept but dauntingly complex in reality. The current form of the decades-old technology, now known as radio frequency identification, or RFID, has three building blocks: small tags built around microchips that carry a digital identification code; scanners, which are also known as readers; and networking hardware and software to link scanners to computer databases. The biggest challenge for retailers and their suppliers has been melding the building blocks into systems that are reliable without being cumbersome or unduly expensive. Unlike the RFID systems that automatically collect tolls from motorists or control access to buildings, those designed for commerce call for disposable, batteryless tags that are tiny and unobtrusive. And since the tags are meant to be slapped on every pallet or carton or even on every item, they must be cheap enough for businesses to buy them by the hundreds of millions. Perhaps most important, retailers need software capable of filtering out huge amounts of data while recognizing relevant information - when an item has unexpectedly disappeared from a shipment, for example. "It's been very hard to do an intelligent investigation into how you need to change the business because the technology is not good enough yet," said Simon Ellis, supply chain futurist for Unilever, the consumer products company. "It's costing over $1 a case, which is fine for a pilot test. But there is no technology to get labels onto our production-line products." The ultimate goal of an RFID system is to track individual products all the way from manufacture to sale. Under such a system, every item would have a tag embedded in its label or attached separately. The tag consists of a microchip and a flat ribbon of antenna; the microchip would contain a unique code identifying the manufacturer, type of product and individual serial number in a format approved by EPCglobal USA, a nonprofit group that has been developing retail RFID standards. As the item moved through the supply chain, scanners in doorways, on loading docks or at other handoff points would capture the movement. Radio waves from the scanners would be picked up by the tag's antenna, providing enough energy for the tag to broadcast its identity back to the scanner. Data would flow through the Internet or other networks to corporate computers, but if the tags had read-write capability, status updates on the item could be added to the tag itself as well. Once products reached the store, scanners in the stockroom could track how rapidly they are moved to shelves, and scanners on shelves could monitor when shoppers removed them. Finally a checkout scanner could ring up everything in a shopping cart as it was wheeled toward the door. Such technology could speed up checkouts and returns, but the bigger economic impact would be in keeping store shelves filled with the products consumers want. Right now, according to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, stores are missing products consumers want to buy about 8 percent of the time on average and up to 15 percent of the time when the product is being promoted. RFID tracking would also make a big dent in theft and counterfeiting, according to proponents of the technology. And, they say, the tags would be designed so that consumers could easily disable them after purchase. That will not mollify privacy advocates, who object to manufacturers and retailers building up electronic records of shoppers' buying habits, but it could calm fears that individuals or institutions outside the store could use the tags to spy on consumer behavior. So much for the vision. Today's tags are too expensive to put on every item (the cheapest cost about 20 cents each). An effort by Wal-Mart to force its suppliers to use RFID has focused on handling tagged cases, cartons and pallet loads of goods rather than individual items. "Even Wal-Mart is still discovering what this technology can and cannot do," said Omar Hijazi, an RFID specialist at the consulting firm A. T. Kearney. With standards not yet settled, few individual items being tagged and retailers not yet demanding RFID tags at more than a few test distribution centers, manufacturers have put off automating RFID tagging. Instead, most are resorting to "slap and ship" strategies in which tags are applied to items involved in tests just before they leave the warehouse. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 10:10:06 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:10:06 -0500 Subject: E-pass defeats HP, MS' case dismissal demand Message-ID: The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Mobile ; Devices ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/11/e-pass_vs_ms_hp_nov_04/ E-pass defeats HP, MS' case dismissal demand By Tony Smith (tony.smith at theregister.co.uk) Published Thursday 11th November 2004 16:27 GMT Microsoft and HP have suffered a set-back in their attempt to defend themselves against allegations made by a patent holding company that their PDA software and hardware violates its intellectual property. Last week, Judge Kenneth M Hoyt of the US District Court for Southern Texas in Houston rejected a request made by Microsoft and HP in July this year that a series of claims made in the patent, number 5,276,311 (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,276,311.WKU.&OS=PN/5,276,311&RS=PN/5,276,311), filed in 1989 and granted in 1994, were invalid due to prior art. ? E-pass' patent covers a "multifunction electronic card" which can be used to store information on a range of credit and debit cards, accessed securely through a password system. Essentially, it describes a single device that users can carry around in place of a multitude of cards. Long-time Register readers will recall that E-pass sued not only Microsoft and Compaq (now part of HP), but 3Com's Palm subsidiary (now PalmOne). In each case, it accused them of selling PDAs that duplicate functionality and techniques outlined in its patent, without authorisation. The Palm action was initiated in 2000 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/03/01/smart_card_company_sues_over/), the Microsoft/HP case in 2002. E-pass is also suing the Visa organisation. It claims Visa met the company in 2000. After the meeting, it never heard from Visa again, until it spotted Visa's then VP for Product Development, Susan Gordon-Lathrop, appear with then Palm CEO Carl Yankowski to demo a Palm storing secure credit card details. The MS/HP case was put on hold pending the outcome of the Palm action, which initially saw Palm victorious - only to be defeated at appeal. Much of the legal toing and froing to date has centred on the patent's use of the word 'card' and what that word means exactly, in this context. 'Card', the defendants claimed, means a specific thing - something thin, flat and the size of a credit card. Our devices are no so sized, said Palm - ergo, they do not infringe E-pass' patent. The US District Court of Northern California agreed, but in August 2003, the appeal court rejected (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/22/judge_dismisses_palm_patent_case/) the verdict, sending the case back to the lower court. The Court of Appeal did not address Palm's infringement or otherwise of E-pass' patent, only that the lower court had been mistaken in its application of the law. The following November, E-pass won the right (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/12/epass_allowed_to_reopen_microsoft/) to re-commence its action against Microsoft and HP on the basis of that appeal court judgement. In February 2004, Judge Hoyt confirmed (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/27/judge_denies_ms_attempt/) the appeal court's ruling and its definition of the word 'card' - it's any "flat, rectangular piece of stiff material", in case you were wondering - and essentially brought the Microsoft/HP case into alignment with the Palm action. The latest judgement centres on a request for dismissal based on prior art. Microsoft and HP claim US patent number 4,701,601 (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,701,601.WKU.&OS=PN/4,701,601&RS=PN/4,701,601), the Visa SuperSmart card - which embodies that patent - and a manual designed for the SuperSmart both detail key elements of E-pass' patent before 5,276,311 was filed. However, Judge Hoyt ruled that in each of the three cases they did not anticipate the claims made in E-pass' patent. Assuming no further requests are made, the case is scheduled to go to trial in March 2005. . Related stories Judge denies MS attempt to re-define 'card' (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/27/judge_denies_ms_attempt/) E-Pass allowed to re-open Microsoft, HP patent lawsuits (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/12/epass_allowed_to_reopen_microsoft/) Judge dismisses Palm patent case win (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/22/judge_dismisses_palm_patent_case/) Smart card company sues over Palm patent piracy claim (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/03/01/smart_card_company_sues_over/) ) Copyright 2004 -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 10:15:40 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:15:40 -0500 Subject: FBI captures Intel staffer with Texas-sized gun cache Message-ID: Ha! Made you look! Cheers, RAH See .sig, below... ------------------- The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Odds and Sods ; Bootnotes ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/11/intel_gun_man/ FBI captures Intel staffer with Texas-sized gun cache By Ashlee Vance in Chicago (ashlee.vance at theregister.co.uk) Published Thursday 11th November 2004 19:18 GMT It's not often that "AK-47" and "Intel" make it into the same sentence, but that's exactly what just happened after it was learned that a former Intel employee has been charged with plotting to attack one of the company's plants in Arizona. Last month, David Dugan was arrested after agents observed him "picking up an AK-47 and 1000 rounds of ammunition" at an Arizona gun shop. Dugan had been under surveillance ever since he allegedly placed a phone call to a family member, suggesting that he planned to shoot up Intel's Chanlder, Arizona plant. Intel confirmed that Dugan was a former employee, and investigators suspect that the man was disgruntled after being fired and enduring a long-standing dispute over disability payments. "The criminal complaint charges that on October 16, 2004, Dugan communicated with a family member in Missouri via telephone, discussing that Dugan had received a letter of termination from Intel and describing ways in which Dugan would cause production at Intel to cease and that people would possibly be hurt at the production facility," the Arizona District Attorney said in a statement. Dugan has been charged with one count of of transmitting a threat via the telephone. He could face up five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine. Agents searched Dugan's home and found an AK-47, a loaded rifle, a loaded shotgun, two handguns and 1800 rounds of ammunition. In Texas, that's known as "the executive weekend retreat package." The FBI alleges that Dugan planned to open up gas pipes in the basement of the Chandler plant and then to begin shooting at machinery. The former manufacturing technician was looking to cause millions in damages, according to the FBI's complaint. A reporter for the Arizona Republic travelled over to Dugan's home and interviewed some of his neighbors. "My daughter had seen him out walking his dog," one neighbor told the paper. "He had just had surgery, and he was very feeble in his walk." A sign on Dugan's front door said, "No trespassing. No solicitations. Place nothing on doorknob. Post no bills please," according to the paper. . Related links Arizona Republic breaks the story (http://www.azcentral.com/community/chandler/articles/1030cr-workplace30Z6.html) Follow up on assault weapons (http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/tempe/articles/1110gr-thomason10Z6.html) Related stories For sale: missiles, heroin and exploding Barbies (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/11/missiles_and_exploding_barbies/) Eight fined in eBay auction scam (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/08/ebay_auction/) 'See through clothes' scanner gets outing at Heathrow (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/08/heathrow_scanner_pilot/) 37 arrested in net gun swoop (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/05/met_guns_net/) Canada offers refuge to distraught Democrats (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/05/canada_offers_refuge/) ) Copyright 2004 -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "When I was your age we didn't have Tim May! We had to be paranoid on our own! And we were grateful!" --Alan Olsen From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 10:16:43 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:16:43 -0500 Subject: Banks brace for cashpoint attack Message-ID: The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Security ; Network Security ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/11/banks_prepare_for_atm_cyber_crime/ Banks brace for cashpoint attack By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus (klp at securityfocus.com) Published Thursday 11th November 2004 10:42 GMT An international group of law enforcement and financial industry associations hopes to prevent a new type of bank robbery before it gets off the ground: cyber attacks against automated teller machines. This fall the Global ATM Security Alliance (GASA) published what it says are the first international cyber security guidelines specifically tailored to cash machines. Experts see new dangers as legacy ATMs running OS/2 give way to modern terminals built on Microsoft Windows. "The recommendations presented in this manual are essentially designed to provide a common sense approach to ... the rapidly changing threat model that the introduction to the ATM channel of the Windows XP and other common use operating systems, as well as the TCP/IP network protocol suite, has created," said the manual's author, Ian Simpson, in a statement. The move comes one year after the Nachi worm compromised (http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7517) Windows-based automated teller machines at two financial institutions, in the only acknowledged case of malicious code penetrating ATMs. The cash machines, made by Diebold, were built on Windows XP Embedded, which suffered from the RPC DCOM security hole Nachi exploited. In response to the incident, Diebold began shipping new Windows-based ATMs preinstalled with host-based firewall software, and offered to add the program for existing customers. Though ATMs typically sit on private networks or VPNs, supposedly-isolated networks often have undocumented connections to the Internet, or can fall to a piece of malicious code inadvertently carried beyond the firewall on a laptop computer. Last year's Slammer worm indirectly shut down some 13,000 Bank of America ATMs by infecting database servers on the same network, and spewing so much traffic that the cash machines couldn't processes customer transactions. The goal of the ATM cyber security best practices document, which has not been made public, and a related white paper developed by GASA, is "to be proactive in fighting what might be the next wave of ATM crime - namely cyber attacks," said Mike Lee, founding coordinator of the group, in a statement. GASA's members include fraud prevention agencies, financial industry associations, the US Secret Service, Visa and MasterCard, and some ATM networks and manufacturers, including Diebold and NCR. Related stories ATMs in peril from computer worms? (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/20/atm_viral_peril/) The ATM keypad as security portcullis (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/21/atm_keypad_security/) Ukrainian teen fights the Rise of the Machines (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/13/girl_terminates_atm/) -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From jamesd at echeque.com Fri Nov 12 13:58:27 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:58:27 -0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4194C183.15495.C1E33D@localhost> -- On 12 Nov 2004 at 14:29, Tyler Durden wrote: > OK, Mr Donald. You clearly imagine the China of 2,500 years > ago to operate like a modern 20th century nation-state. You > need to rethink this, given a few simple facts: My delusion is evidently widely shared: I did a google search for legalism. http://tinyurl.com/56n2m The first link, and many of the subsequent links, equated legalism with totalitarianism, or concluded that legalism resulted in totalitarianism. > 1. There were no telephones during Confucious' time. Pol Pot's goons mostly murdered people by killing them with a hoe, and mostly tortured people with burning sticks. Does this make Pol Pot's Cambodia not a modern nation state? What made the Ch'in empire a modern despotism was total centralized control of everything, and a multitude of regulations with drastic penalties for non compliance. Telephones are irrelevant. It was the liberal use of the death penalty for non compliance, not the telephone, that made it centralized. > 2. Several provinces of China are larger than all of Western > Europe. Even a very high-priority message could take months > to propagate. 3. "Control' of China 2500 years ago was almost > nonexistent. When a provincial commander marched fresh conscripts from place A to place B, he would do it in the time alloted, and be there on the date specified, or the Ch'in emperor would cut his head off. It is the cut-his-head off bit, and the minute and overly detailed instructions concocted by a far away bureaucracy, that made it a modern totalitarianism. Analogously, in the recent war, Iraqi troops failed to blow several bridges because they had to wait for orders from Saddam. Wireless and telephone did not help. > It was a geographically, ethnically, and linguistically > diverse set of quasi-nation-states. So was the Soviet empire. > "Law" in early China was NOTHING like what you imagine it to > be, and was a higly decentralized affair. So was Stalin's Soviet Empire, and Pol Pot's Cambodia, in the highly unusual sense of "decentralized" that commie/nazis use. Pol Pot's Cambodia was, like Ch'in dynasty china, decentralized in that they had twenty thousand separate killing fields, but was, like Ch'in dynasty china, highly centralized in that the man digging a ditch dug it along a line drawn by a man far away who had never seen the ground that was being dug. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG kIKFSkaq39tHojTf6+FAu2WFT3X6iHJMyTUNi7kx 4kLyg7PvSEfnbAOwjYFVGCmxNpP52VH6X9inrj6cM From jamesd at echeque.com Fri Nov 12 14:02:20 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:02:20 -0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4194C26C.2688.C57481@localhost> -- On 12 Nov 2004 at 15:08, Tyler Durden wrote: > The Qing were 1) Manchus (ie, not Han Chinese)...they were > basically a foreign occupation that stuck around for a while; > and 2) (Nominally Tibetan) Buddhists. Although they of course > adhered to the larger Confucian notions, they in many ways > deviated from mainstream Confucian beliefs. The mainstream Confucian belief, like the mainstream legalist belief, was that the emperor should have absolute power. The Qing dynasty was successful in giving effect to this belief, and justified that effect on confucian grounds. This makes them more confucian, not less confucian, than the Sung dynasty, for the Sung were confucian merely in intent, much as the current chinese regime is communist merely in intent. > Also, you need to get more specific about WHEN during the > Qing dynasty you believed this occurred. During the 19th > century this is most certainly NOT true, and there are many > famous naval battles that occurred between the British and > the Chinese navies (in fact, the famous Stone Boat in the > Summer palace was built using funds that were supposed to pay > for real ships). The Qing dynasty prohibited anyone other than themselves from owning seagoing boats - that is why I called it the equivalent of the iron curtain. > But this has nothing to do with Confucianism per se, but is > more directly related to good old traditional Chinese > xenophobia. The prohibition was not against foreigners sailing, but chinese sailing, so the intent was not fear of foreigners, but as with the iron curtain, fear of chinese wandering outside government control and being contaminated with unauthorized foreign thoughts. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG QpsnWCawMTxeL36my3kdz4SvKVqTYqmGh2nPCY2E 4vCwJru3POMcSWlMD2yDlvSJWTIOuNvDNItpg37fe From jamesd at echeque.com Fri Nov 12 14:08:37 2004 From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:08:37 -0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4194C3E5.2190.CB339A@localhost> -- Tyler Durden > To say that China was "despotic" would, on average, be > accurate. But then again, one must remember that a form of > despotism where the despots are months away is very different > from modern forms of despotism. But the despots are still months away. The joke used to be that it took a Russian six months to organize a date with a girl because he had to clear it with the Kremlin. When Vietnam attacked Cambodia in 1978, it took the left a year to suddenly come up with a venemous denunciation of Khmer Rouge Cambodia - they could not react until the Soviet Union reacted, and it took the Soviet Union near a year to react. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG /wF4zwpFvF9ac/DnBvXxdZOBgq+OgBH5WtuPImjY 4mzi4xYS1k3UR5wq20+FtKNGU4wV3pYRcCYMs0tjT From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Fri Nov 12 11:29:23 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:29:23 -0500 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks Message-ID: OK, Mr Donald. You clearly imagine the China of 2,500 years ago to operate like a modern 20th century nation-state. You need to rethink this, given a few simple facts: 1. There were no telephones during Confucious' time. 2. Several provinces of China are larger than all of Western Europe. Even a very high-priority message could take months to propagate. 3. "Control' of China 2500 years ago was almost nonexistent. It was a geographically, ethnically, and linguistically diverse set of quasi-nation-states. To even imagine them to be anything like a modern nation state indicates you are extrapolating your bizarre little philosophical universe well beyond the breaking point. (But then again, that wasn't too hard!) 4. Event the early Ryu-Jya (Legalists) were nothing like what you imagine modern laws to be. In fact, their activity probably centers on creating an established set of standardized weights (ie, for weighing food and whatnot). "Law" in early China was NOTHING like what you imagine it to be, and was a higly decentralized affair. Indeed, modern China is rapidly 'deteriorated' into the same. As for... >Which is a commie nazi way of saying that the the Confucians >were not a heck of a lot different from the legalists - and the >legalists set up an early version of the standard highly >centralized totalitarian terror state, which doubtless appears >quite enlightened to the likes of Tyler Durden. Again, you seem to visualize me as (-1) times yourself, or basically your old commie self. The point I continue to harp on (and that you fail to understand) is that, despite how well one may argue that one sees reality 'objectively' (and others don't), completely alternate viewpoints are possible and very often held by others throughout the world. An action like the US in Iraq (irregardless of what you believe the objective reality to be) is futile precisely because it only re-inforces the world view of the locals (ie, that the US is a giant, bullying oppressive regime that has stuck it's big dick into the holy land and needs force to remove it). In other words, perception is often reality, and until you (and others like you) accept that, then we'll continue to have bloodbath after bloodbath, initated by 'Christian' and 'Islamic' true believers alike. -TD >From: "James A. Donald" >To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: China's wealthy bypass the banks >Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:41:20 -0800 > > -- >On 12 Nov 2004 at 9:51, Tyler Durden wrote: > > As far as I'm concerned, what Kung Tze does ca 5 BCE is > > really consdolidate and codify a large and diverse body of > > practices and beliefs under a fairly unified set of ethical > > ideas. In that sense, the Legalists were merely a refocusing > > of the same general body of mores, etc...into a somewhat > > different direction. One might call it a competing school to > > Kung Tze de Jiao Xun, but I would argue only because, at that > > time, Kung Tze "authority" as it's known today was by no > > means completely established. But in a sense, the early > > legalists weren't a HECK of a lot different from Confucious. > >Which is a commie nazi way of saying that the the Confucians >were not a heck of a lot different from the legalists - and the >legalists set up an early version of the standard highly >centralized totalitarian terror state, which doubtless appears >quite enlightened to the likes of Tyler Durden. > > --digsig > James A. Donald > 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG > k9Dumf7XMAhNCRDuxNd2aKQtrN2PqD2p2l3TDcjw > 4SMVqw0LGnr3oZKU5v0WQpooJ4tKHdZvNiokzj2e9 From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Fri Nov 12 12:08:20 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:08:20 -0500 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks Message-ID: Ah. This is an interesting point. The Qing were 1) Manchus (ie, not Han Chinese)...they were basically a foreign occupation that stuck around for a while; and 2) (Nominally Tibetan) Buddhists. Although they of course adhered to the larger Confucian notions, they in many ways deviated from mainstream Confucian beliefs. Also, you need to get more specific about WHEN during the Qing dynasty you believed this occurred. During the 19th century this is most certainly NOT true, and there are many famous naval battles that occurred between the British and the Chinese navies (in fact, the famous Stone Boat in the Summer palace was built using funds that were supposed to pay for real ships). But perhaps you meant ocean-going boat ownership by private individuals, and that is certainly something that was a BIG no-no during many epochs of Chinese civilization. And indeed, this is probably precisely why the Chinese had to defend themselves from British attack, rather than the other way around. But this has nothing to do with Confucianism per se, but is more directly related to good old traditional Chinese xenophobia. In the end, Chinese unification was probably a devil's bargain. It created a far more stable "nation", but at the cost of human freedom. But it's not precisely like this was imposed on the populace from without...that it was successful at all in a place as large and remote as China is a testimony to Chinese dislike of "Wai Guo" culture. -TD >From: "James A. Donald" >To: cypherpunks >Subject: Re: China's wealthy bypass the banks >Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 10:11:09 -0800 > > -- >ken wrote: > > > And when was this stagnation? > >R.A. Hettinga wrote: > > Two words: Ming Navy > >For those who need more words, the Qing Dynasty forbade >ownership or building of ocean going vessels, on pain of death >- the early equivalent of the iron curtain. > > --digsig > James A. Donald > 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG > Iw7Wkew4KTQWmS2lvvIMd7+fR3rWAWagnqJ4cF0k > 4Ee4DcVaw474VQFVRrwVAXR4XZSXiaNtRuKXYpsBo From camera_lumina at hotmail.com Fri Nov 12 12:14:51 2004 From: camera_lumina at hotmail.com (Tyler Durden) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:14:51 -0500 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks Message-ID: >That is the revisionist version - that china was a free and >capitalist society, therefore freedom is not enough to ensure >modernity and industrialization - a proposition as ludicrous as >similar accounts of more recently existent despotic states. I can't tell if you're arguing me with or just yourself. You seem to equate disagreement with your assessment with a viewpoint that is completely opposite. To say that China was "despotic" would, on average, be accurate. But then again, one must remember that a form of despotism where the despots are months away is very different from modern forms of despotism. Today's China is in some ways similar to China during many dynasties. The emperor sleeps some insect with a big, fat stinger awakens him and then he gets mad, swats it, and then goes back to sleep. When the locals are fairly certain the emperor is sleeping soundly, they go about their business. Call it despotism if you want, but really it's essentially Chinese. -TD From bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk Fri Nov 12 07:40:27 2004 From: bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk (ken) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:40:27 +0000 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks In-Reply-To: <419425EB.3502.5176CFB7@localhost> References: <419425EB.3502.5176CFB7@localhost> Message-ID: <4194D96B.7070006@students.bbk.ac.uk> > China stagnated because no thought other than > official thought occurred. And when was this stagnation? And what were the reasons China did not "stagnate" for the previous thousand years? From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 13:02:48 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:02:48 -0500 Subject: Bin Laden Has "Religious Approval" To Use Nuke Message-ID: The Drudge Report Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers FORMER HEAD OF CIA'S OSAMA BIN LADEN UNIT SAYS THE QAEDA LEADER HAS SECURED RELIGIOUS APPROVAL TO USE A NUCLEAR BOMB AGAINST AMERICANS Fri Nov 12 2004 12:02:34 ET Osama bin Laden now has religious approval to use a nuclear device against Americans, says the former head of the CIA unit charged with tracking down the Saudi terrorist. The former agent, Michael Scheuer, speaks to Steve Kroft in his first television interview without disguise to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Nov. 14 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Scheuer was until recently known as the "anonymous" author of two books critical of the West's response to bin Laden and al Qaeda, the most recent of which is titled Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. No one in the West knows more about the Qaeda leader than Scheuer, who has tracked him since the mid-1980s. The CIA allowed him to write the books provided he remain anonymous, but now is allowing him to reveal himself for the first time on Sunday's broadcast; he formally leaves the Agency today (12). Even if bin Laden had a nuclear weapon, he probably wouldn't have used it for a lack of proper religious authority - authority he has now. "[Bin Laden] secured from a Saudi sheik...a rather long treatise on the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Americans," says Scheuer. "[The treatise] found that he was perfectly within his rights to use them. Muslims argue that the United States is responsible for millions of dead Muslims around the world, so reciprocity would mean you could kill millions of Americans," Scheuer tells Kroft. Scheuer says bin Laden was criticized by some Muslims for the 9/11 attack because he killed so many people without enough warning and before offering to help convert them to Islam. But now bin Laden has addressed the American people and given fair warning. "They're intention is to end the war as soon as they can and to ratchet up the pain for the Americans until we get out of their region....If they acquire the weapon, they will use it, whether it's chemical, biological or some sort of nuclear weapon," says Scheuer. As the head of the CIA unit charged with tracking bin Laden from 1996 to 1999, Scheuer says he never had enough people to do the job right. He blames former CIA Director George Tenet. "One of the questions that should have been asked of Mr. Tenet was why were there always enough people for the public relations office, for the academic outreach office, for the diversity and multi-cultural office? All those things are admirable and necessary but none of them are protecting the American people from a foreign threat," says Scheuer. And the threat posed by bin Laden is also underestimated, says Scheuer. "I think our leaders over the last decade have done the American people a disservice...continuing to characterize Osama bin Laden as a thug, as a gangster," he says. "Until we respect him, sir, we are going to die in numbers that are probably unnecessary, yes. He's a very, very talented man and a very worthy opponent," he tells Kroft. Until today (12), Scheuer was a senior official in the CIA's counter terrorism unit and a special advisor to the head of the agency's bin Laden unit. Developing... -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From em at em.no-ip.com Fri Nov 12 01:53:07 2004 From: em at em.no-ip.com (Enzo Michelangeli) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 17:53:07 +0800 Subject: China's wealthy bypass the banks Message-ID: <07d401c4c89d$7de99fe0$0200a8c0@em.noip.com> Re: China's wealthy bypass the banks Tyler Durden Wed, 10 Nov 2004 14:56:08 -0800 > Oh No!!!! > > > Way overly simplistic. Also, you are comparing apples to bushels of > wheat. > > [James Donald:] > However Confucianism vs Daoism/Taoism is rather different from what > you would get in the west. Confucianism is somewhat similar to what > you would get if western cultural conservatives allied themselves with > nazi/commies, in the way that the commies are prone to imagine > conservatives have supposedly allied themselves with nazis. Taoism > somewhat similar to what you would get if anarcho capitalists allied > themselves with pagans and wiccans... > > WOW! I'll skip the obvious comments and ask, In which centuries are > you suggesting this applies? Now? If so, you are clearly NOT talking > about mainland China. Please re-define the centuries/epochs during > which you believe this to have been true, and then maybe I'll bother > responding. Actually, that doesn't apply to any century. The ancient philosophical school that inspired Mao Zedong was actually Legalism, which provided the theoretic foundations to the absolutist rule of Qin Shi Huangdi (to whom Mao liked to compare himself). Mao, as many other Chinese reformers and writers of the early XX Century, hated Confucianism as symbol of China's "ancien regime" and decay. Which is why the campaign against Zhou En-lai of 1974-75 had an anti-Confucian theme (see e.g. the posters at http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/plpk.html ) Legalists and Qin Shi Huangdi himself were pretty nasty types, and their domination saw widespread confiscation of books, ridiculously harsh rule (arriving late to work could bring the death penalty!) and large-scale assassination or rivals: several Confucian philosophers were buried alive. The ruthless methods of the Qin dinasty ultimately resulted in its downfall: it only lasted one and half decade (221 - 206 BC), half of what Maoism did. By comparison, Confucianism was remarkably enlightened, which is also why Voltaire expressed a good opinion of it. Some Confucian philosophers like Mencius (372-289 AC) were early theorists of people's sovereignty: "The people are the most important element in a nation; the spirits of the land and grain are the next; the sovereign is the lightest [...] When a prince endangers the altars of the spirits of the land and grain, he is changed, and another appointed in his place." [Mencius, Book 7: http://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius27.html ] ...and of the right to tyrannicide, justified by the loss of legitimacy brought by misrule: "The king said, 'May a minister then put his sovereign to death?' Mencius said, 'He who outrages the benevolence proper to his nature, is called a robber; he who outrages righteousness, is called a ruffian. The robber and ruffian we call a mere fellow." [Mencius, Book 1: http://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius04.html ] Enzo From mv at cdc.gov Fri Nov 12 19:23:47 2004 From: mv at cdc.gov (Major Variola (ret)) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 19:23:47 -0800 Subject: Stewart, Esq Message-ID: <41957E43.B7691AE3@cdc.gov> Moses Washington Sitting Bull Bin Laden Let my people go, Any Questions? >"I believe that entrenched institutions will not be changed except by violence," Stewart said. "I believe in the politics that lead to violence being exerted by people on their own behalf to effectuate change." Stewart cited the American Revolution and the struggle to end slavery as such examples but emphasized that she did not support terrorism, saying, "I do not believe in civilian deaths or wanton massacres."> From mv at cdc.gov Fri Nov 12 19:45:31 2004 From: mv at cdc.gov (Major Variola (ret)) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 19:45:31 -0800 Subject: Freedom of Expression Message-ID: <4195835B.D4F5C210@cdc.gov> At 09:41 AM 11/10/04 -0500, R.A. Hettinga wrote: >Those who love operas get what they want, and those who love rock and roll >get what they want, and both can live in peace with one another. Not if that manic-depressive, mother of controlled-substance-abusing spawn named Tipper Gore had maintained the power that she rode when her "Internet-Inventing" husband was fighting for his moronic political life. She would have banned R&R, see the Mothers of Prevention album, by the premiere American composer of the 20th century, among others. Not that I wouldn't pay good money to see her, William Cohen's bipolar negress, and Condosleeza Rice duke it out, in a tub of Jello (tm), on pay-per-view, officiated by the elder lackey Powell's FCC son officiating, of course. My money's on Rice, she knows how to fight, damn the collateral damage, full speed ahead. From pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz Fri Nov 12 00:08:18 2004 From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:08:18 +1300 Subject: Cell Phone Jammer? Message-ID: "Tyler Durden" writes: >Anyone know from first-hand experience about cellphone jammers? > >I need... > >1) A nice little portable, and Try the SH066PL, a nice portable that looks exactly like a cellphone, it's one of the few portables I know of. >2) A higher-powered one that can black out cell phone calls within, say, 50 >to 100 feet of a moving vehicle. Google is your friend, there are tons of these around, with varying degrees of sophistication. These are definitely not portable, taking several amps at 6-12V to power them. None of them are exactly cheap. Peter. From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 18:16:50 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:16:50 -0500 Subject: Survey: People want receipt showing how they voted Message-ID: Las Vegas SUN Photo: Larry Lomax Las Vegas SUN Today: November 12, 2004 at 9:43:50 PST Survey: People want receipt showing how they voted LAS VEGAS SUN An Election Day poll in Las Vegas indicated that 81 percent of voters surveyed want to take home a private "ATM style" receipt to verify for themselves their vote was counted correctly, a consulting group said Wednesday. Lombardo Consulting Group said it surveyed 362 voters in conjunction with political science professor Michael John Burton of Ohio University. Given a choice between leaving a voter-verified paper ballot at the polling place or taking home a receipt, 60 percent of those asked said they preferred take-home receipts and self-verification, and 36 percent said they preferred the idea of leaving a paper ballot with election officials. Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller, the man responsible for overseeing elections throughout the state, opposes giving voters a printed receipt, however. He said that while it may sound like a good idea, it could lead to many problems. An employer could require a worker to show his receipt to prove he voted a certain way, or the worker could be subject to loss of his job if he didn't follow the wishes of the employer, Heller said. Unions could require a member to verify he voted a certain way in order to keep his membership, said Heller. Any of those actions would be illegal, however. Heller also said the printed receipts could lead to electioneering problems. He referred to a ruling from his office that a casino could not give free meals to customers who showed records that they had cast their ballots. None of the problems he cited would be caused by voters themselves, however. Nevada was the only state to use "statewide" voter-verified paper ballot printers attached to electronic voting machines on Election Day. In a press release, Burton said that "many voters thought a private receipt that they could take home would be the best way to know if their vote was counted correctly. People are used to getting receipts from ATMs or gas stations -- and they liked the idea of getting a receipt from the voting booth." During the election in Nevada, voters were instructed by poll workers to compare their vote selections on the electronic screen with what was printed on the voter verified paper ballot scroll. The paper ballot scrolls were retained by election officials for use in post-election audits or recounts. The survey also examined voter interaction with Nevada's voter-verified paper ballot machines and found that only 31 percent of the voters actually compared the entire paper ballot to the machine ballot in order to ensure their vote was recorded accurately. Lombardo Consulting Group is a corporate and political public opinion research firm with offices in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Complete survey results can be found at http://www.lombardo consulting group.com /docs/ nvvotersurvey.pdf -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 18:30:10 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:30:10 -0500 Subject: Gov't Orders Air Passenger Data for Test Message-ID: Yahoo! Gov't Orders Air Passenger Data for Test Fri Nov 12, 2:35 PM ET By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The government on Friday ordered airlines to turn over personal information about passengers who flew within the United States in June in order to test a new system for identifying potential terrorists. The system, dubbed "Secure Flight," will compare passenger data with names on two government watch lists, a "no fly" list comprised of people who are known or suspected to be terrorists, and a list of people who require more scrutiny before boarding planes. "Secure Flight represents a significant step in securing domestic air travel and safeguarding national security information, namely, the watchlists," the Transportation Security Administration said in a notice announcing the order. Currently, the federal government shares parts of the list with airlines, which are responsible for making sure suspected terrorists don't get on planes. People within the commercial aviation industry say the lists have the names of more than 100,000 people on them. The order follows a 30-day period during which the public was allowed to comment on the Secure Flight proposal. About 500 people commented on the plan; the overwhelming majority opposed it, saying it would invade their privacy and infringe on their civil liberties. An airline industry representative said the carriers, which support the plan, are studying the order. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' From rah at shipwright.com Fri Nov 12 19:16:19 2004 From: rah at shipwright.com (R.A. Hettinga) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:16:19 -0500 Subject: Mr. Blue Goes Deaf When He Sees Red Message-ID: Mostly because I sent his "Declaration of Expulsion" here... It's entirely possible that, absent a physical threat to keep the country together, we have all the necessary ingredients to go the way of the Soviet Union someday, and devolve. Cheers, RAH ------ HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 Mr. Blue Goes Deaf When He Sees Red by Mike Thompson Posted Nov 12, 2004 Twenty-four hours after the dramatic U.S. presidential-election results were validated, Human Events Online published my essay (which I had been hatching for two weeks), "Declaration of Expulsion," a slightly satiric proposal to kick out of the Union the 12 most liberal states, either to join the People's Socialist Dominion of Canada or, on their own, go straight to Hell. Within hours (and I do not claim that my piece was a causal effect), liberal voices formed into an enthusiastic chorus for roughly the same idea: Democrat gurus Lawrence O'Donnell and Robert Beckel, as angry talking heads on two separate TV news shows, taunted the newly solid-Republican South (all states of which actually are overfed "welfare clients" of the affluent, heavily taxed North, huffed O'Donnell) to secede, for the second time since 1860; The reliably opportunistic Internet erupted with "I Seceded" T-shirts for sale, plus the mocking map of a 31-Red-state nation called "Jesusland," and An e-mail rapidly circulating among liberals touted creation of the country of "American Coastopia," whose upscale Atlantic- and Pacific-rim inhabitants joyfully would (what else?) fly over Fly-Over Country to get away from "rednecks in Oklahoma and homophobic knuckle-draggers in Wyoming." Then came confirmation of the growing fascination for dividing what once was "one nation indivisible," when Manhattan-based liberal talk-show host Alan Colmes invited me to be a guest for 15 minutes on his late-night radio program. My on-air "15 minutes of fame" would mushroom into 45 minutes of defamation: "Why are you so intolerant of liberals?" asked Herr Colmes, who apparently had forgotten that he was supposed to ask me when I had stopped beating my wife. I explained to him factually that more liberals than conservatives publicly are advocating dissolution of the Union, and that the issue, in either event, is not intolerance but rather insolubility--that is, there is no middle ground, no compromise possible on most CultureWar issues. "That's exactly what intolerance is!" asserted the intolerant talkmeister. "Listen carefully, Alan," I urged. "If you want Congress to pass a 10-dollar minimum wage and I want an eight-dollar cap, it's possible for us to compromise at nine dollars. But how do we compromise on abortion? Shall we kill only half as many babies? How do we compromise on gay marriage? Shall we allow a lesbian to marry a lesbian but forbid a man to marry a man? There are too many of these insoluble differences between the Red states and the Blue states." "I can't believe how intolerant you are!" screamed Alan. Soon a self-identified lesbian called in breathlessly to confess "intense fear of intolerant Red states." (Why, I thought, was she phoning a radio show in the middle of the night instead of her local 911 operator?) The perceptive host again verbally pounced on me, his guest, who safely lives in the brimstone warmth of Red Florida: "Do you think, Mr. Thompson, that this woman is evil or immoral?" "Alan, I have no idea who the woman is," I answered. "I have just met her anonymously over the phone. All I know is that she has made a bad choice of lifestyle, because lesbians have a documented higher rate of alcoholism, a higher rate of mental problems and a higher rate of suicide than heterosexual women." Alan, who apparently is aurally challenged, now was in the full-boost stage of liberal ballistics: "What do you mean, this woman RAPES other women? You are filled with hate! How DARE you say such a thing!" "Rape?" I asked, flabbergasted. "I said RATE--as in 'suicide rate.' RATE--as in 'alcoholism rate'! Please listen to me, Alan. Is your phone bad?" With no apology to his mystified guest, Alan disconnected the lesbian's call and radically changed the subject: "Do you think John Kerry is a traitor?" "Yes, Alan. One who commits treason," I observed coolly, "by definition is a traitor. Kerry went to Paris and consulted with our Communist Vietnam enemies, not with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Subsequently, Kerry publicly endorsed the outrageous Communist 'peace plan,' not his own country's plan. "In uniform, Kerry during the war and under oath before the U.S. Senate also accused his fellow American soldiers of indiscriminately raping and killing Vietnamese civilians and destroying their villages just for the fun of it--false charges that were welcomed and used by the Communist nation's cruel jailers for years to torture American prisoners. Therefore, Mr. Kerry is a double traitor." Unguided-missile Colmes finally reached the smoking-burnout stage, spewing invectives and ridicule at me as fast as his facile, bifurcated tongue could wag. "How can you just sit there and libel a statesman like John Kerry?" he sputtered. "How dare you sit in judgment of a great American patriot!" My answer: "Apparently you have forgotten, Alan, but you asked me to 'sit in judgment' of John Kerry--you asked me if I thought he was a traitor. I didn't bring up the subject." Pausing, I asked, "By the way, can you tell your audience how the Constitution defines a traitor? Go ahead. Surely you must know." Retorted Prof. Colmes testily: "I'm not going to play your little quiz game!" "It's not a game, Alan," I said. "Are you ignorant and don't know the answer, or are you afraid to speak the truth? The Constitution defines a traitor as someone who in time of war adheres to our enemy and gives the enemy 'aid and comfort'--those are the exact words. Listen, Alan, listen." His response was a curt good-bye before going to the final break of the hour to promote rupture-easers and get-rich-quick books from unknown con-artists. When I submitted "Declaration of Expulsion," I felt a bit like Jonathan Swift must have when he wrote "A Modest Proposal," a tongue-in-dark-cheek suggestion that the "excess" babies born to Irish Catholics should be eaten by Englishmen as a cheap source of meat. After my 45-minute broadcast encounter with a typical American liberal, however, I believe that expulsion of the most egregiously leftwing states is anything but a slight "joke'; it is, in fact, clearly the serious and necessary path for rescue and revival of the United States of America. I am also sure that God will be understanding when the U.S.A., a reborn nation with revised borders, reaffirms the entire First Amendment and does not change its name at this time, even if well intended, to Jesusland. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting t