Cc: Tomasz Rola 
Subject: (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant,
    space station

[

http://www.timesofisrael.com/stuxnet-gone-rogue-hit-russian-nuke-plant-space-station/

]

(... links deleted all the way down ...)

     * Tuesday, November 12, 2013
     * Kislev 9, 5774
     * 12:43 am IST
     * Site updated 2 minutes ago

Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant, space station

A cyber-security expert says several ostensibly secure facilities became
victims of the virus that struck Iran's nuclear program

   By [30]David Shamah November 11, 2013, 4:21 pm 

   [36]Eugene Kaspersky (Photo credit: Courtesy Tel Aviv University) 
   Eugene Kaspersky (Photo credit: Courtesy Tel Aviv University)

   A  Russian  nuclear power plant was reportedly "badly infected" by the
   rogue Stuxnet virus, the same malware that reportedly disrupted Iran's
   nuclear  program  several  years  ago.  The  virus  then spread to the
   International   Space   Station   via  a  Stuxnet-infected  USB  stick
   transported by Russian cosmonauts.

   Speaking  to  journalists  in  Canberra,  Australia, last week, Eugene
   Kaspersky, head of the anti-virus and cyber protection firm that bears
   his name, said he had been tipped off about the damage by a friend who
   works at the Russian plant.

   Kaspersky  did  not  say when the attacks took place, but implied that
   they occurred around the same time the Iranian infection was reported.
   He  also did not comment on the impact of the infections on either the
   nuclear  plant  or  the  space  station,  but  did say that the latter
   facility had been attacked several times.

   The  revelation  came  during  a  question-and-answer  period  after a
   presentation on cyber-security. The point, Kaspersky told reporters at
   Australia's  National  Press  Club  last  week,  was  that  not  being
   connected  to  the  Internet  --  the public web cannot be accessed at
   either  the nuclear plant or on the ISS -- is a guarantee that systems
   will  remain  safe.  The  identity of the entity that released Stuxnet
   into  the  "wild" is still unknown (although media speculation insists
   it was developed by Israel and the United States), but those who think
   they  can  control  a  released  virus are mistaken, Kaspersky warned.
   "What  goes  around  comes around," Kaspersky said. "Everything you do
   will boomerang."

   The  Stuxnet  virus  came  to  light  in 2010, having attacked Iranian
   nuclear   facilities   by   hitting  the  programmable  logic  control
   automation  systems that control them. The PLC system, manufactured by
   German  conglomerate  Siemens,  runs  the  centrifuges  used to enrich
   uranium  at  Iran's Natanz facility. Variants of Stuxnet have affected
   the  facility's  centrifuges  in  various ways, mostly by changing the
   activity  of  valves  controlled  by  the  PLC  software that feed the
   uranium  to  centrifuges  at  a specific rate required for enrichment,
   Kaspersky said in several presentations last year.

   It's  not  known when Stuxnet began its activities, but researchers at
   anti-virus  company Symantec said that they had gathered evidence that
   earlier  versions of the code were already seen "in the wild" in 2005,
   although it wasn't yet operational as a virus. Stuxnet, said Symantec,
   was  the first virus known to attack national infrastructure projects,
   and  according  to the company, the groups behind Stuxnet were already
   seeking  to  compromise  Iran's  nuclear  program  in 2007 -- the year
   Iran's  Natanz  nuclear  facility, where much of the country's uranium
   enrichment is taking place, went online.

   Now  that  the  plague  has  been unleashed, said Kaspersky, no one is
   immune  --  and  that  includes  its originators, who are no longer in
   control of it. "There are no borders" in cyberspace, and no one should
   be  surprised  at  any  reports  of  a  virus  attack,  no  matter how
   ostensibly secure the facility, he said.

(... links deleted ...)

   Š 2013 The Times of Israel, All rights reserved.
   Concept, design & development by
   [188]RGB Media
   Powered by
   [189]Salamandra
   Quantcast

References

(... all deleted, ouch ...)

From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Tue Nov 12 14:16:02 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 22:16:02 +0000
Subject: [SOT] {FWD} [Dailydave] Don't use vowels in passwords! (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <5282A238.1040303@witmond.nl>
References: 

 <52813E19.3060404@kjro.se> <1448719.1bQligVbQN@lap>

 <20131112211651.3aa0545c@Neptune> <5282A238.1040303@witmond.nl>
Message-ID: <20131112221602.766b635b@Neptune>

> With an average of 5 important sites and 50 less important site per
> person, it requires people to *remember* 55 totally different 20
> character passwords.

If you could be assured of client-side salted-JS-hashing of the password
prior to submitting it to the server, then you could in principal use
the same password everywhere.

This used to be the norm, but SSL made it easier first to store plains,
and for (as the security concerns of break-ins became apparent) to
store server-generated hashes. Yet many, perhaps most, services don't
do their job correctly on the server-side. If it were still done
client-side, a savvy user could make sure hashing were done correctly,
and salted appropriately.

> The world needs to forget passwords as remote identification and move
> on to client certificates. Preferably, a separate client certificate
> for each site. It takes only a small browser plug in to make it easy.

Ideally yes we'd all use unique certs for everything, but then we'd be
tied to our particular browsers.
You could make this work with a well-implemented browser sync agent,
but what about users of pathetic platforms that don't support
trustworthy browsers (iPhone, Nokia)?

-Cathal
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From guido at witmond.nl  Tue Nov 12 13:48:40 2013
From: guido at witmond.nl (Guido Witmond)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 22:48:40 +0100
Subject: [SOT] {FWD} [Dailydave] Don't use vowels in passwords! (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <20131112211651.3aa0545c@Neptune>
References: 

 <52813E19.3060404@kjro.se> <1448719.1bQligVbQN@lap>

 <20131112211651.3aa0545c@Neptune>
Message-ID: <5282A238.1040303@witmond.nl>

On 11/12/13 22:16, Cathal Garvey wrote:

> A password of good length, stored using a *password hash*, is pretty
> secure against attack. 'Good length' here is 20 characters or more, if
> you ask me..but the "true" entropy of a passphrase is not merely the
> length or character value, but number of words. So a 4-word
> 20-character passphrase is probably slightly weaker than a 5-word one,
> because pattern-based or markov-based brute-forcers may have an easier
> time working through 4-character passphrases.

With an average of 5 important sites and 50 less important site per
person, it requires people to *remember* 55 totally different 20
character passwords.

The number of trivia that people can remember in short term memory is 7
plus or minus 2. 55 is way to much to remember.

The world needs to forget passwords as remote identification and move on
to client certificates. Preferably, a separate client certificate for
each site. It takes only a small browser plug in to make it easy.

Regards, Guido.

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From l at odewijk.nl  Tue Nov 12 13:57:43 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 22:57:43 +0100
Subject: (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant,
 space station (fwd)
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: 

The software was highly specific and messed with the controller of
centrifuges. Speeding it up and slowing it down faster than they should,
messing with the bearings (or something like that). I didn't know the ISS
had that sort of centrifuges there.

Regardless, the protip is: don't windows for critical systems.
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From guido at witmond.nl  Tue Nov 12 14:45:26 2013
From: guido at witmond.nl (Guido Witmond)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 23:45:26 +0100
Subject: [SOT] {FWD} [Dailydave] Don't use vowels in passwords! (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <528406B0.6090108@gmail.com>
References: 

 <52813E19.3060404@kjro.se> <1448719.1bQligVbQN@lap>

 <20131112211651.3aa0545c@Neptune> <5282A238.1040303@witmond.nl>
 <528406B0.6090108@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5282AF86.2080903@witmond.nl>

On 11/14/13 00:09, sharon wrote:
> below :)
> On 11/12/2013 11:48 PM, Guido Witmond wrote:
>> The world needs to forget passwords as remote identification and move on
>> to client certificates. Preferably, a separate client certificate for
>> each site. It takes only a small browser plug in to make it easy.
>>
>> Regards, Guido.

> hi, off-list.

> ive read a bit about your ideas for auth. its interesting.
> but im not clear on one thing -
> if were happy with keeping secrets locally, and even letting a browser
> plug-in read/write them,
> why not just generate a pgp key pair, with one good password,
> and use that to keep an encrypted file with lots of randomly generated,
> strong passwords?
> that encrypted file can be easily synced across devices, with any
> regular service, a its encrypted.
> (or synced manually, privately)
> and the key pair, should be better protected, manually synced, or for
> non-paranoid people, with the same service, since thats protected with a
> good password too.
> of course, echo "good password"| gpg -d "password file"|grep "service
> name" could be done with a browser plugin as well.
> how is that inferior to client certificates? or the the code you wrote
> to make it happen?

> thanks.
> feel free to reply publicly if you think someone else might also benefit
> from it.

What you've designed is a classic password manager application, like
Lastpass, Keepas. It's a good design for when the site requires a password.

However, as every website has their own rules for password, lengths,
allowed characters, it makes it a bit of hit and miss whether a certain
generated password will be accepted. It would lead to having a list of
sites and recipes of what is allowed. It doens't scale.

Besides, most sites also require an email address, so anonymity is lost.

Client certificates are already implemented in most web servers. It's a
one-line setting to accept a certain certificate authority for a site.
If that is the Ca of the site owner themselves, it's even easier.

The price to pay (for end users) is to have a computer that cannot
easily be subverted by malware. Notice that's the same requirement for
password managers.

I've written about my ideas on client certificates on my site:
http://eccentric-authentication.org/

Feel free to ask if anything is not clear

Regards, Guido.

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From guido at witmond.nl  Tue Nov 12 14:53:46 2013
From: guido at witmond.nl (Guido Witmond)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 23:53:46 +0100
Subject: [SOT] {FWD} [Dailydave] Don't use vowels in passwords! (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <20131112221602.766b635b@Neptune>
References: 

 <52813E19.3060404@kjro.se> <1448719.1bQligVbQN@lap>

 <20131112211651.3aa0545c@Neptune> <5282A238.1040303@witmond.nl>
 <20131112221602.766b635b@Neptune>
Message-ID: <5282B17A.20803@witmond.nl>

On 11/12/13 23:16, Cathal Garvey wrote:
>> With an average of 5 important sites and 50 less important site per
>> person, it requires people to *remember* 55 totally different 20
>> character passwords.
> 
> If you could be assured of client-side salted-JS-hashing of the password
> prior to submitting it to the server, then you could in principal use
> the same password everywhere.

Who is providing the javascript? The site? The NSA? Then it can send a
NIL-cipher that effectively transmits the single password in a
recoverable way to the server. It would be unnoticable to the user.

> This used to be the norm, but SSL made it easier first to store plains,
> and for (as the security concerns of break-ins became apparent) to
> store server-generated hashes. Yet many, perhaps most, services don't
> do their job correctly on the server-side. If it were still done
> client-side, a savvy user could make sure hashing were done correctly,
> and salted appropriately.

Don't assume people will do anything intelligent. Tehy won't! We should
protect people even when they try to do stupid things. Security and
privacy must be standard and be reliable to be trusted upon.

>> The world needs to forget passwords as remote identification and move
>> on to client certificates. Preferably, a separate client certificate
>> for each site. It takes only a small browser plug in to make it easy.
> 
> Ideally yes we'd all use unique certs for everything, but then we'd be
> tied to our particular browsers.
> You could make this work with a well-implemented browser sync agent,
> but what about users of pathetic platforms that don't support
> trustworthy browsers (iPhone, Nokia)?

You hit the nail on the head. A reliable syncing agent provides the
seamless user experience and protects against a loss of a private key
(that's needed to prove ownership of the certificate).

Browsers that don't support this syncing will find themselves as
roadkill of the ubiquitous encryption age. They will adapt or die.

Regards, Guido.

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From coderman at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 00:24:52 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 00:24:52 -0800
Subject: Fwd: the new 2014 Add-Only Sets
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Zooko O'Whielacronx 
Date: Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 11:09 PM
Subject: the new 2014 Add-Only Sets
To: tahoe-dev 

Folks:

(This is a copy of
https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/795#comment:13 .)

Here's my rendition of our discussion of add-only sets at the
Tahoe-LAFS Summit today. (As usual, I altered and embellished this
story significantly while writing it down, and people who were present
to witness the original discussion are invited to chime in.)

An add-only cap doesn't have to also be a write-only cap. It might be
good for some use cases that you can give someone a cap that lets them
read the whole set, and add elements into the set, without letting
them remove elements or change previously-added elements. It might be
good in some other use cases to have an "add-only&write-only" cap,
which allows you to add elements into the set but doesn't let you read
elements of the set, nor remove nor change previously-added elements.
We agreed to focus on the former case for now, because it is easier to
design and implement a solution to it. (See #796 for discussion of
write-only caps.)

We agreed to forget about erasure-coding, which makes an
already-confusing problem (how to implement add-only sets without
allowing a few malicious servers, adders, or set-repairers to perform
rollback attack or selection attack), into a very-confusing problem
that exceeded my brain's ability to grapple with it.

So, for now, assume that add-only sets don't use erasure-coding at all.

Now, the basic design we came up with is like this. I'll explain it in
multiple passes of successive refinement of the design.

FIRST PASS: DESIGN "0"

An authorized adder (someone who holds an add-cap) can generate
"elements", which are bytestrings that can be added into the set. (I
mispronounced "elements" as "elephants" at one point, and from that
point forward the design was expressed in terms of a circus act
involving elephants.)

Elephants have an identity as well as a value (bytestring), so:

    aos = DistributedSecureAddOnlySet()
    aos.add_elephant(b"\xFF"*100)
    aos.add_elephant(b"\xFF"*100)

results in aos containing two elephants, not one, even though each
elephant has the same value (the bytestring with one hundred 0xFF
bytes in it).

aos.add_elephant() generates a random 256-bit nonce to make this
elephant different from any other elephant with the same value. I call
this "putting a tag on the elephant's ear" — a "tagged elephant" is a
value plus a nonce. Even if two elephants are identical twins, they
can be distinguished by the unique nonce written on their ear-tags.

aos.add_elephant() then puts a digital signature on the
tagged-elephant (using the add-only-cap, which contains an Ed25519
private key), and sends a copy of the tagged-elephant to every one of
N different servers. Putting a digital signature on a tagged-elephant
is called "wrapping a net around it".

A reader downloads all the tagged-elephants from all the servers,
checks all the signatures, takes the union of the results, and returns
the resulting set of elephants.

Design "A" relies on at least one of the servers that you reach to
save you from rollback or selection attacks. Such a server does this
by knowing, and honestly serving up to you, a fresh and complete set
of tagged-elephants. “Rollback” is serving you a version of the set
that existed at some previous time, so the honest server giving you a
copy of the most recent set protects you from rollback attack.
“Selection” is omitting some elephants from the set, so the honest
server giving you a complete copy of the set protects you from
selection attack.

SECOND PASS: DESIGN "1"

We can extend Design "0" to make it harder for malicious servers to
perform selection attacks on readers, even when the reader doesn't
reach an honest server who has a complete copy of the most recent set.

The unnecessary vulnerability in Design "0" is that each
tagged-elephant is signed independently of the other tagged-elephants,
so malicious servers can deliver some tagged-elephants to a reader and
withhold other tagged-elephants, and the reader will accept the
resulting set, thus falling for a selection attack. To reduce this
vulnerability, adders will sign all of the current tagged-elephants
along with their new tagged-elephant with a single signature. More
precisely, let the "identity" of a tagged-elephant be the secure hash
of the tagged-elephant (i.e. the secure hash of the nonce concatenated
with the value). The signature on a new tagged-elephant covers the
identity of that tagged-elephant, concatenated with the identities of
all extant tagged-elephants, under a single signature. In circus
terms, you add the new tagged-elephant into a pile of tagged-elephants
and throw a net over the entire pile, including the new
tagged-elephant.

Now, malicious servers can't omit any of the older tagged-elephants
without also omitting the new tagged-elephant. Readers will not accept
the new tagged-elephant unless they also have a copy of all of the
other tagged-elephants that were signed with the same signature. This
limits the servers's options for selection attacks.

THIRD PASS: DESIGN "2"

We can refine Design "1" to make it cleaner and more CPU-efficient and
network-efficient. This will also lay the groundwork for an efficient
network protocol.

The unnecessary "dirtiness" in Design "1" is that the digital
signatures on older tagged-elephants become extraneous once you add a
new digital signature. We have a mass of tagged-elephants, we throw a
net over the whole mass, then later when we add a new tagged-elephant
to the pile, we throw a new net on top of the new (slightly larger)
pile. Now the underlying net has become redundant: once you've
verified the signature of the outermost net, there is no need to check
the signature of the inner net. In fact, if one implementation checks
the signature of the inner net and another implementation does not
check it, then a malicious adder colluding with a malicious server
could cause the implementations to differ in their results, by putting
an invalid net (an invalid signature) topped by a new tagged-elephant
with a valid net. (Daira was the one who noticed that issue.)

To make this cleaner and more efficient, we will never put a net
around a net, and instead we'll keep each tagged-elephant in a box.
When you want to add a new tagged-elephant to a set, you rip off and
throw away any extant nets, then you put the new tagged-elephant in a
box which is nailed on top of the previous topmost box. Then you wrap
a net around the new topmost box. "Nailing" box Y on top of box X
means taking the secure hash of box X and appending that to box Y
(before signing box Y). A "box" is a tagged-elephant concatenated with
any number of "nails", each of which is the secure hash of a previous
box.

(Note that you can sometimes have two or more boxes precariously
perched at the top of a stack, when two adders have simultaneously
added a box before each saw the other's new box. That's okay — the
next time an adder adds a box on top of this stack, he'll nail his new
box to each of the previous topmost boxes.)

Boxes are a lot more CPU-efficient than nets, and more importantly
nobody (neither readers, adders, nor servers) needs to revisit a
lower-down box in order to add a new top-most box. Once you nail box Y
on top of box X, then you can later add box Z just by taking the hash
of box Y, without revisiting box X.

Note that we need two different secure hashes here: one is the
identity of a tagged-elephant, which is the secure hash of: the nonce
concatenated with the value. The other is the hash of the box, which
is the secure hash of: the identity of a tagged-elephant concatenated
with the hashes of any previous boxes. We need the identity of a
tagged-elephant for finding out whether a certain tagged-elephant
already exists in a stack (regardless of what position it occupies
within that stack), and we need the hash of the box for efficiently
verifying that all the tagged-elephants in a stack were approved by an
authorized adder.

This also leads to the efficient network protocol: an adder can
remember (cache) the Directed Acyclic Graph of boxes which a given
server previously told the adder about. When the adder wants to add a
new tagged-elephant or a set of new tagged-elephants to that server,
he can send just the boxes which would be new to that server, assuming
that the server hasn't learned anything new since the last time they
talked. Readers can do likewise, remembering what each server
previously told them about, and asking the server to just tell them
about things that are not already covered the topmost box(es) that the
reader already knows about.

CONCLUSION

Okay, that's it! I think Design "2" is a good one. It has good
security against rollback or selection attacks by malicious servers
(assuming some kind of whitelisting of servers! Which is ticket #467
and is not yet implemented.) And, it doesn't go too far over the top
in terms of complexity; it seems more intuitive to me than (my vague
memories of) previous attempts to design add-only sets for LAFS.

(By the way, there are a few other possible ways to strengthen
defenses against rollback attack, which we've previously considered in
the context of mutable files, but they probably also apply to add-only
sets.)

I'm excited about this design being feasible, because I think add-only
sets could be a critical building block in valuable use-cases such as
secure logging, secure email, secure backup, and more.

Regards,

Zooko

P.S. Thanks to Isis and Mike for showing up today and, when asked what
Tahoe-LAFS improvements they were interested in, suggesting add-only
sets.

From coderman at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 00:35:32 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 00:35:32 -0800
Subject: passwords! (including long passwords with poor entropy)
Message-ID: 

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 6:08 PM, brian carroll
 wrote:
>...
> yet what if the passwords 'length' were not the issue, such that a 20
> character string (of several number.words with several intermixed
> special characters) could still be successfully attacked, given those
> limited parameters.

this summer oclHashCat-plus got an upgrade (experimental) for support
to 64 characters of search space (55 or more depending on algo).

obviously this length implies a more intelligent / direct search
through the key space, which, if limited to a much smaller character
set, becomes practically attack-able...

in fact, optimizing the path of a dict cruncher like oclHashCat or
Hashkill for best performance against a particular target set is an
enjoyable art unto itself ;)

From joseph.g.tag at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 03:59:09 2013
From: joseph.g.tag at gmail.com (Joseph Tag)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 06:59:09 -0500
Subject: passwords
Message-ID: 

I prefer old liscencd plates; maybe repeated.

I.e.: ZIGZAG9NYzigzag9ny .

Also zip codes: zip02134ma .

-- 
Sent from Gmail Mobile
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From eugen at leitl.org  Wed Nov 13 00:54:09 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:54:09 +0100
Subject: The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone
Message-ID: <20131113085409.GO5661@leitl.org>

http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phone

The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone

posted by Thom Holwerda	 on Tue 12th Nov 2013 23:06 UTC

I've always known this, and I'm sure most of you do too, but we never really
talk about it. Every smartphone or other device with mobile communications
capability (e.g. 3G or LTE) actually runs not one, but two operating systems.
Aside from the operating system that we as end-users see (Android, iOS,
PalmOS), it also runs a small operating system that manages everything
related to radio. Since this functionality is highly timing-dependent, a
real-time operating system is required.

This operating system is stored in firmware, and runs on the baseband
processor. As far as I know, this baseband RTOS is always entirely
proprietary. For instance, the RTOS inside Qualcomm baseband processors (in
this specific case, the MSM6280) is called AMSS, built upon their own
proprietary REX kernel, and is made up of 69 concurrent tasks, handling
everything from USB to GPS. It runs on an ARMv5 processor.

The problem here is clear: these baseband processors and the proprietary,
closed software they run are poorly understood, as there's no proper peer
review. This is actually kind of weird, considering just how important these
little bits of software are to the functioning of a modern communication
device. You may think these baseband RTOS' are safe and secure, but that's
not exactly the case. You may have the most secure mobile operating system in
the world, but you're still running a second operating system that is poorly
understood, poorly documented, proprietary, and all you have to go on are
Qualcomm's Infineon's, and others' blue eyes.

The insecurity of baseband software is not by error; it's by design. The
standards that govern how these baseband processors and radios work were
designed in the '80s, ending up with a complicated codebase written in the
'90s - complete with a '90s attitude towards security. For instance, there is
barely any exploit mitigation, so exploits are free to run amok. What makes
it even worse, is that every baseband processor inherently trusts whatever
data it receives from a base station (e.g. in a cell tower). Nothing is
checked, everything is automatically trusted. Lastly, the baseband processor
is usually the master processor, whereas the application processor (which
runs the mobile operating system) is the slave.

So, we have a complete operating system, running on an ARM processor, without
any exploit mitigation (or only very little of it), which automatically
trusts every instruction, piece of code, or data it receives from the base
station you're connected to. What could possibly go wrong?

With this in mind, security researcher Ralf-Philipp Weinmann of the
University of Luxembourg set out to reverse engineer the baseband processor
software of both Qualcomm and Infineon, and he easily spotted loads and loads
of bugs, scattered all over the place, each and every one of which could lead
to exploits - crashing the device, and even allowing the attacker to remotely
execute code. Remember: all over the air. One of the exploits he found
required nothing more but a 73 byte message to get remote code execution.
Over the air.

You can do some crazy things with these exploits. For instance, you can turn
on auto-answer, using the Hayes command set. This is a command language for
modems designed in 1981, and it still works on modern baseband processors
found in smartphones today (!). The auto-answer can be made silent and
invisible, too.

While we can sort-of assume that the base stations in cell towers operated by
large carriers are "safe", the fact of the matter is that base stations are
becoming a lot cheaper, and are being sold on eBay - and there are even open
source base station software packages. Such base stations can be used to
target phones. Put a compromised base station in a crowded area - or even a
financial district or some other sensitive area - and you can remotely turn
on microphones, cameras, place rootkits, place calls/send SMS messages to
expensive numbers, and so on. Yes, you can even brick phones permanently.

This is a pretty serious issue, but one that you rarely hear about. This is
such low-level, complex software that I would guess very few people in the
world actually understand everything that's going on here.

That complexity is exactly one of the reasons why it's not easy to write your
own baseband implementation. The list of standards that describe just GSM is
unimaginably long - and that's only GSM. Now you need to add UMTS, HSDPA, and
so on, and so forth. And, of course, everything is covered by a ridiculously
complex set of patents. To top it all off, communication authorities require
baseband software to be certified.

Add all this up, and it's easy to see why every cellphone manufacturer just
opts for an off-the-shelf baseband processor and associated software. This
does mean that each and every feature and smartphone has a piece of software
that always runs (when the device is on), but that is essentially a black
box. Whenever someone does dive into baseband software, many bugs and issues
are found, which raises the question just how long this rather dubious
situation can continue.

It's kind of a sobering thought that mobile communications, the cornerstone
of the modern world in both developed and developing regions, pivots around
software that is of dubious quality, poorly understood, entirely proprietary,
and wholly insecure by design.

From griffin at cryptolab.net  Wed Nov 13 07:45:22 2013
From: griffin at cryptolab.net (Griffin Boyce)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 10:45:22 -0500
Subject: Brazil and Germany issue joint UN resolution on Digital Privacy
In-Reply-To: <52839CE3.2000202@opentechinstitute.org>
References: <52839CE3.2000202@opentechinstitute.org>
Message-ID: <52839E92.2010806@cryptolab.net>

  In it, they state that they are "deeply concerned" at human rights
violations resulting from digital surveillance and the overall trend
away from privacy.  It's a great read, and I *highly* recommend sharing
it with your friends.

http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N13/544/07/PDF/N1354407.pdf

best,
Griffin

(please excuse double post, if any)
-- 
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

PGP: 0xD9D4CADEE3B67E7AB2C05717E331FD29AE792C97
OTR: saint at jabber.ccc.de

From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 11:42:33 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 13:42:33 -0600
Subject: passwords! (p2)
In-Reply-To: <5283A3F9.6010204@gmail.com>
References: 
 <5283A3F9.6010204@gmail.com>
Message-ID: 

Alexey Zakhlestin wrote:

||  in other words; the password would not be:
||
||     [mordify][sunflower-icon][fort%20lauderdale][3.124]

> the problem is, that in your scenario entropy would still be limited to
> this string. everything else is a reproducible computation.

the concept of entropy as if a metaphysical device has me confused in
most cases. given that i do not have requisite skills or understanding
of technical implementations, there is a tremendous gap between how
such processes actually function as structures, what the exact device
interactions are. and thus my naive observations occur in a realm of
mostly unanswered questions and basic assumptions though it seems also
that what is known by others resolves what are probably fundamental
misunderstandings on my part, due to not knowing how these things
actually work. though in questioning without knowing, perhaps
scenarios can be retested and solidified in their correctness and
robustness, though for me it remains opaque and little understood and
beyond my capacity in most all crypto descriptions.

my relation with 'entropy' as a concept was from reading and thinking
about cybernetics (N.Weiner) and also understanding it as a concept in
nature. Guy Murchie, author of excellent books that conceptualize
nature, was one of these contexts for basic awareness and a sense of
understanding that appears to lose relevance in a crypto context and
becomes perhaps more mysterious than it actually is.

The Seven Mysteries of Life: An Exploration in Science & Philosophy
By Guy Murchie

Google book quotes on entropy and concept of 'negentropy' (pp.444)

http://books.google.com/books?id=Cq0AqNmeaHYC&pg=PA444&lpg=PA444&dq=guy+murchie+entropy&source=bl&ots=BJXI4K6UKS&sig=F0mJtSdET8NVUfsD0563vgx9ixU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M6-DUtiKHNOlkQeY-4CoCw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=guy%20murchie%20entropy&f=false

// here is another enigmatic quote found perhaps of relevance...

     "What's in a name? In the case of Shannon's measure the naming
was not accidental. In 1961 one of us (Tribus) asked Shannon what he
had thought about when he had finally confirmed his famous measure.
Shannon replied: "My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought
of calling it 'information,' but the word was overly used, so I
decided to call it 'uncertainty.' When I discussed it with John von
Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, 'You should call
it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty
function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it
already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one
knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the
advantage.' "

-- M. Tribus and E. C. McIrvine, Energy and Information,
Sci. Am., 225, 3, 179-188, September, 1971.
from: http://schneider.ncifcrf.gov/quotes.html

i have some understanding of the concept of systems and of equilibrium
between them, given their dynamic connected or disconnected relations.
that there is influence (as in the thermodynamic model) where one
system effects another, or both eachother perhaps, within particular
dimensions or constraints. maybe this even goes into the
observer-observation scenario, such that any interaction is a
potential influence, though perhaps this goes both-ways, not just
one-way, in terms of "information".

it seems important how "information" is conceptualized likewise, if it
is outside of the matter/energy model or mapped onto/into it,
especially given a mathematical and computational context. what if,
for instance, this magic word entropy was functioning on another
'analog' level of informational processing, such that equations broken
down into bits instead could be worked out as an energy flow, and
thereby crunching numbers was instead occurring in another domain
(say, in mathematics involving 'zero' that models the world
differently), and in this way calculations that appear highly complex
could instead be trivial if worked out as an energetic relation. not
to propose this is what is occurring, yet in its *magic* the entropic
value seems to conjure such calcubility as a threshold condition, that
defines what can be believed legitimately secure, information-wise,
versus insecure by known limits that are exploitable.

what these limits are or how this functions is beyond me, yet entropy
is the magic concept that appears to allow all sorts of calculation to
occur in the realm of 'feasible attacks' against 'known weaknesses'
due to information that can be computed, or leaves loose strings that
will allow its security to be unraveled.

what this is, why and howso, as mentioned is unknown to me, and it
sounds like many others who are also not aware of or initiated into
the mysterious of crypto as a technical computational enterprise, yet
i still wonder to what extent assumptions are involved that could go
unchecked and perhaps need to be requestioned, considered again or
allow open questioning of what could become dogma otherwise, and a
basis for false security or false views or inaccurate concepts,
structuralized. believed secure or the basis for security yet not
thoroughly evaluated in the terms it exists.

such as, what if the model for "information" in its relation to energy
and matter. this has everything to do with a concept like entropy- so
what if the standard view on this. is information detached from
physical reality, is it separated from electrons that 'represent' it
when encoded in binary or carry the forms of encryption as a signal
layer. how might the entanglement of information with physical, energy
bits in some way change the ~metaphysics of crypto, such that perhaps
brute-force calculations by massively parallel supercomputers may not
be required if entropy were calculated otherwise, as energy flows or
could be evaluated say by thermal imaging or other techniques or
approaches, beyond parsing bits and guessing at equations and
mathematical structures.

in other words: what if the cosmology and cosmography that is the
foundation for cryptographic beliefs, and how does the structure and
story of the world relate to the concept of entropy.

for instance, if the view of crypto has developed in a
non-electromagnetic understanding and the basis for evaluation of
equations and encryption - in terms of entropy - references
thermodynamics yet does not include 'the electromagnetic component' of
"information", computer processing (electrons, photons, charge), and
other variables, then perhaps the use of entropy is a distortion or
malmodeling of events, or an EXPLOIT itself, due to inaccuracies or
false views or relations establishing a gap between what exists and
how it is mediated by observers, those involved in creating and
breaking crypto, etc.

so if there is a non-electromagnetic view of information as the
/context/ for crypto, a view of [entropy] can be limited or bounded to
a false threshold or misleading parameters, while other effects could
exist and be exploited by other 'non-documented' physics, in
particular as information relates to energy, and how mathematics could
be interacted with in other forms, such as energy flows versus in
terms of signage and numbers. and algorithm or encryption equation
perhaps breakable in other patterning, potentially, if knowing the
secrets that could remain hidden as part of its mystery or esoteric
practice.

so what if cryptography involves an 'energy calculation' in place of
an 'information calculation', and this could occur at the level of
material stuff or within the nature of electronics, prior to or
underneath the encoding scheme, and divulge patterns or structures
likewise via these other technical means.

perhaps corollary to neuroscience trying to reverse-engineer
consciousness via 'reading the brain', and that a gap could exist
between what patterns are accessible and how they are interpreted, in
what frameworks, etc. such that the potential for phrenology is high
at the outset, though could be reduced through successive attempts and
investigations, building up a model and more accurate description yet
this could still remain bounded, held within a particular set of
parameters, distant from what is sought.

contrary to this, from the outside-in approach, an inside-out version,
knowing materiality and energetic patterns prior to its encoding could
potentially help unravel a simple constructed system, even if knotted
and bunched and folded together by various equations, wherein an
energy analysis within this condition could unknot, unbunch, unfold
the various sequences in terms of their entangled arrangement, perhaps
moving from an artificial decoherence back into a natural coherence,
prior to encoding, as energy flows.

(consider the maypole as a model for computation, where any
interleaving patterns of equation could be unwoven by, say,
entanglement with hierarchical structuring of fundamental forces
beyond the electron, as this relates to information encoding and thus
organization/disorganization and entropy, whereby it is through an
energy state that such unraveling could occur versus by manipulating
unknowns of signage)

while perhaps impossible to imagine in the framework of MIPs and bytes
- as information - in terms of electrons as carries and an
infrastructural conduit with its own nature, prior to encoding with
signal, it is not unimaginable or inconceivable that 'energy as the
foundation for this secondary layer of information' would also map
into an expanded, electromagnetic context for entropy, as systems
interrelate, intermix.

is it likely? i have no idea. does it reference in some way the
mysteriousness of entropy as a magic word? to me, yes. thus fools like
myself must wonder what kind of sorcery is involved in the secretive
toolkits used, especially in a realm of quantum information, where
entanglement could proceed any secondary flows of information, within
its structure and context if so devised, yet remain unaccounted for,
especially in terms of a mainstream view, which could be
misinformation about the true nature in which this equipment and ideas
of cryptography operate. thus basic communication could be delusional
if trying to reason within a false or inaccurate rationalization,
structural distortion presented as if fact, leading to nonsense, or
further obfuscation by discussions outside the protected (insider)
boundary.

this much is understood and understandable. yet then what is the
purpose of language or attempting to communicate about such things
unless entropy itself is involved between inside/outside systems that
require relation, yet must remain protected to have functional
security. a portal or wormhole or whatever then potentially being
constructed across or between worldviews, channeled through strange
parameters that may remain unknown to the uninitiated and yet active,
to some extent determining and requiring a particular process be
observed to influence or limit known calculability or computation,
inside a given threshold, that functions as protection or shield
against chaos if not revealed hidden ordering, openings that could
lead to exploits, given the conditions that exist as context for
information, matter, energy that may not be summed up or solved just
as a linear string in terms of its evaluation and instead something
else, 'other' that remains undocumented or unaccounted for in the
realm beyond, a wilderness territory.

     [machine 1]   <===>   [machine 2]

this is a model of a password scenario as i imagine it. 'machine 1'
would be a user and 'machine 2' would be the machine accessed, that
receives a password.  my assumption is that 'entropy' when referenced
in terms of information could instead relate to any 'machine 1' that
could interact with 'machine 2' to interrogate its structure...

     [machine N]   <===>   [machine 2]

what seems to be an issue is that the password-verifying machine (2)
could be overwhelmed by another machine that mimics 'machine 1',
though sends millions or trillions of passwords, over a period of
time.

not being a programmer, hacker, cryptographer or otherwise, it is not
understood how this situation is the default scenario, having such
access granted, unless an exploit has already occurred or a security
barrier has already been defeated, thus providing such unimpeded
access. why is this the assumption, to have such access, in other
words. why would 'machine 2' allow a false user to run endless
password attempts and provide the processing power to do this. would
it not make more sense to put the parsing of the 'machine 2' password
on a limited or highly-constrained processing venue, such that
password computation is happening in a few transistors at most, for
the pattern match, than of peak processing. that is, why not use an
integrated circuit or dumbed-down circuit for that gateway than allow
massive resources for its evaluation, that can be exploited by an
attacker. hell, why not use a few transistors arranged into logic
gates that fail or blow fuses as a physical security measure, even.

in terms of ~equilibrium it would appear to correspond to patterning
within both machines, as to whether the pattern in 'machine 2' can be
correctly matched by the user machine (1) or its mimic, 'machine N'
which could generate this pattern via guesswork and sleuthing.

     [machine N]  patterns   <===>   patterns  [machine 2]

and perhaps it is a numbers game, if there are 10 trillion patterns
accessible to the false or deceptive user in 'machine N' that are run
against the less ~complex structuring of 'machine 2' holding secrets,
then perhaps via some mysterious law of averages (if entropy)
eventually equilibrium will flip the odds in favor of the attack (N)
revealing the hidden order, the structure of the password, given
time....

though this would depend on what the parameters of the password are.
'length' of a highly constrained character set could lead to 512 bits
(naive variable) that retains a simple patterning, easy to compute or
calculate in these terms, say especially if it is binary or bounded
and these boundaries are known. whereas 10 bits of unknown boundaries
may remain unsolvable, though given enough time, could potentially be
resolved (the 'age of universe' conceit, etc).

     [machine N]  patterns   == (time) ==>   patterns  [machine 2]

so in some approximated sense, modeling of a brute force attack on a
machine for cracking passwords appears to the initiated and unknowing,
such as myself, to involve: a) access to make the attack, b) more
patterns or complexity than the machine attacked, c) time to match the
pattern.

and that this in some way relates to 'entropy' yet in the above
scenario, notice the one-wayness of the situation, as if 'machine 2'
is only dumb and allows this attack to occur within its unprotected
boundary versus, say, reducing computational resources to not allow
high-volume processing for password input, or likewise, reverses the
entropy situation and gains 'information' from the attacker by
providing a spoof or false-positive password to reroute the attack
into a sandbox and a false-interior-perspective that can become a
countermeasure for getting inside the attacking machine via this
'information balancing'...

     [machine N]  <===  [machine 2]         such that:

     (machine N (machine 2))  <===>  (machine 2 (machine N))

in this scenario the real attack could be 'machine 2' that via a fake
pattern match, draws in the attacker yet this allows the machine to
gain internal access within that framework, and to become part of its
information ecosystem, while what is perceived or related to could be
false data: here, machine 2 prime or 2', that then is the actual
exploit, via a form of reverse-engineering or counterattack...

     (machine N (machine 2))  <===>  (machine 2' (machine N))

in other words, the actual 'machine 2' could gain surveillance
capabilities over the attacking machine via allowing or making such
equalization across boundaries easy instead of difficult, and thus
establish an accurate information relation between machines N and 2,
which could be exploited or used for attacks, while the attacking
machine may gain access yet its relation could be a false perspective,
inaccurate or a distortion, between machine 2' and itself, which
exposes it to exploitation beyond what it grant, and potentially
involving N-more patterns to interact with, or bury itself within, the
attacking machine perhaps insecure likewise, and yet not aware of its
vulnerabilities even given 'known' safeguards or disconnection from
fingerprinting or whatnot. there could still be mystery involved, and
the hashtables could be turned and yet it would not appear or be able
to be evaluated this way, especially if beyond the boundary, or
specific threshold, or given parameters that structure and provide the
framework for these relations. something else could always be
occurring and likely is, given the larger cosmic context for
technology.

in this way entropy as a security issue may exist within certain
parameters while functioning in others that may be unaccounted for.
say, allowing a system to be easily hacked to map or track the
attackers, though also, allowing encryption scenarios to exist and
appear secure in one context, yet within another they are insecure by
design of different physics or information modeling. i.e. what appears
closed may instead be open and vice-versa and thus back into auditing
and accounting of the models involved, used to conceptualize the most
basic relations, interactions, assumptions, ultimately: beliefs,
hypotheses.

how can any concept as a concept, such as [entropy], exist and not be
empirically evaluated yet viewed in absolute terms as to its meaning,
especially in a relativistic multiple, parallel interpretation where
the 'information value' does not itself have coherence, situation to
situation, context 1a to context b3000. perhaps it is a problem and
function of language, than of cryptography as a concept and idea, its
truth.

in other words, biased computation and biased calculation could exist
that presupposes or seeks to determine what this 'truth' of
cryptography is, yet itself may not be accurate as an empirical
perspective and instead may involve misinformation, warped or skewed
beliefs that are the basis for exploits and attacks, due to the
variances or gaps or incongruities introduced, involved, or relied
upon as structure that is actually weakened or false by these
unaccountable aspects, left ambiguous, necessarily so.

it gets to the idea of corruption of perception and action based upon
inaccurate modeling of existence, and how false views can be in
service to another agenda, at another layer or in another level.

what if the NSA and its prominence with code-breaking was actually
reliant on a cheat-sheet approach where the parameters must be rigged
for the calculations and computations to take place efficiently, and
thus "security" is reliant upon the corruption of technology, rather
than the robustness of codebreakers and high-creativity of
mathematicians to challenge those constraints, which instead become
normalized into a standardized approach, where previous approaches are
incrementally extended as a deterministic rationalization of what
cryptography is, and in this way codebreaking and making ability is
dumbed-down such that encryption is designed which can be broken,
within particular technological parameters and this extends into
mathematics and computerized solutions geared towards a particular
limited approach that allows this constrained ecosystem to function-
versus challenging its parameters, forcing it to grow or even
defeating its equipment.

what if the NSA is corrupted from the inside out, what if it was made
'too easy' or a false perspective was established within the
organization, and what exists is an NSA', and that is the context for
crypto development and state' security and mass surveillance, and that
is part of the ongoing campaign of deception, that events are
occurring within a limited set of parameters when actually functioning
outside and beyond these constraints, though "information" occurring
in that domain itself appears unreal, as if of the wrong physics or
detached from recognizable truth or whatever. thus, the threshold
limit in this way can establish patterning (N) that is beyond the
computability of what is within a protected boundary and this is
established also within technology, within code, language,
communication, consciousness, ideas and concepts themselves as
interpreted and most importantly - grounded, though which appear to
those without the circuitry, to be ungrounded, unreal, without value
or truth, only distortion, lies, errors, ignorance, and so on. in this
way, the true nature of crypto may not be revealed for the unititiated
yet believed known and realized within tangible tools and techniques
that map into a given world view, belief system, and shared
perspective-- essentially representing, standing-in for the 'sign of
security' even, while this could be ungrounded, insecure, in
dimensions that are beyond perception, belief, knowing.

and is this not a issue of entropy also, as people exist and interact
in differing systems, the opening of minds to information itself that
may compromise their own circuitry, its patterning, if dealing with
higher ordering when instead viewed as lower, and that this is the
basis for exploits and take-downs occurring also within a realm of
metaphysical encryption, as ideas and concepts and people exist in
pseudo and actual truth. perhaps the context is not inclusive enough
to account for these real-world scenarios (even to extend into virtual
and AI environments, circuitry of a continuum spanning the entirety of
programming) here and there, in that what exists as it exists may be
bounded in interpretation even while interrelations default to such
scenarios, and as informational-energy flows, provide openings for
pattern evaluation. in this way, the very interaction is the entropic
exchange, truth inherent at every level, beyond particular
interpretations, and again the claim that truth is the ultimate
security, natural, artificial, and virtual. (this as it corresponds
with empirical truth not just ungrounded belief, ergo, which tends
towards mimicry)

☏ <---> ☎

From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 13:35:53 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:35:53 -0600
Subject: expanded security model (was passwords! (p2) deux)
Message-ID: 

i need to clarify a point that opens up the interpretation of entropy into
a realm of information involving people and technology and nature, because
in the modeling i am referencing all information must ground to truth in
order to be verified or validated as true, and that nature and technology
and people who exist 'in truth' are in this way grounded within it, whereas
those who are short-circuiting are partly or partially grounded, as this
relates to patterns, exchange, and exploits.

the realm of concepts, communication, and ideas also are involved as if a
mental-dimension for the physicality of information, and to not include
this in a security model seems falsely limiting if not allowing or relying
upon a state of distortion, to begin with.

thus the overall goal here is to account for truth as a basis for entropy
in a security context or empirical evaluation...

     [machine N]  patterns   <===>   patterns  [machine 2]

previously the above relation was established between two machines that
interact and 'exchange' information, in some dimension, knowingly or
unknowingly (as if consciously and subconsciously even).

     (machine N)  ===>  (machine 2 (machine N))

and if one of these machines *investigates or interrogates* the other, and
somehow gains access, it could be thought that in the successful matching
of patterns that what it has achieved _validates its model of relation, by
default, even if only in a partially grounded framework. thus to
distinguish the _belief of how this structural relation is occurring, with
its actuality, the actual condition of this relation in terms of its truth.

in other words the relation between 'machine 2' and 'machine N' that is
achieved as a relation, via the matching of patterns, could be believed to
validate the truth of the worldview of machine N, though the pattern match
could instead be pT=pT, due to inaccurate modeling or framework. and thus a
false perspective could be the relation, yet validate a perception of
things, as if accurate, while not grounded in the larger reality.

likewise, what can occur is a two-way relation whereby this inaccuracy is
accounted for by the entity interacted with, perceived 'known' via such
faulty pattern matching, and thus provide or leak information from itself
that is in a context of truth, though the tells as if subconscious or
unconscious, resulting from a TSCM-like scanning of relational frameworks,
that is if 'machine 2' is functioning within grounded truth.

     (machine N (machine 2))  <===  ((machine N) machine 2')

in this way the real exploit is not occurring through granting or gaining
access to validate further _inaccurate pattern matching by 'machine N', it
is that this entity is leaking unknown information as part of this
balancing process, about its hidden state that is insecure due to its not
being based in truth, and thus distortion, bias, warping, and skew reveal
frameworks and structuring, allowing perspectives to be traced back to
originating beliefs and equations within the pseudo-, where a running
cosmological constant occurs to make everything onesidedly correct. and in
this way, the relation on the left side is in a context of truth, via the
errors betraying 'machine N' via its reliance on pseudo-truth and falsity,
and the condition on the right side is a false perspective of a relation
that establishes and verifies inaccurate pattern matches, false positives,
due to a protected limited onesided evaluation *confirming* true belief
which is itself not grounded beyond its partialty.

     (machine N (machine 2))  <===>  ((machine N) machine 2')

      [truth <-----> truth]              [pT <-----> pT]

in this way, the advantage is with 'machine 2' (that may actually have more
patterns or n-dimensionality) yet this imbalance may not be revealed or
accounted for, and thus the balancing could appear onesided, as if from
oneside data is being extracted while the other remains protected and
static behind a given boundary, versus betraying its secrets
unintentionally, via this structural, informatic relation (matter/energy)

in other words (more complexity..) there could be more going on than
believed, in this basic relation, and /appearances/ may not accurately
match the reality, and yet this can also be accounted for, in truth, or
become a threshold condition enabling camouflage... in this way the roles
may be reversed yet not accounted for by the naive, ungrounded, mistaken,
or inaccurate 'true believer' observers...

such that machine 2 could actually in its truth be 'N' and likewise,
'machine N' in its unchecked falsity could be binary...

     (machine 2 (machine N))  <===>  ((machine 2) machine N')

      [truth <-----> truth]              [pT <-----> pT]

in this way, the 'real machine N' could be granted access to unrestricted
pattern matching in a subconscious or unaccounted for realm of the '
'real machine 2', though this condition could begin by the 'real machine 2'
trying to continuously exploit 'the realm Machine N' and in this way, the
false perspective of the latter (N->2'), allowing the *belief* that the
binary view is actually N-potential in its accuracy and scope even while
this is ungrounded beyond its own skewed, relativist accounting. thus
patterns are verified in pseudo-truth, and in allowing this relation, also
enables the inaccuracies to leak about its actual state to align with the
greater patterning of the 'real machine N', via automatic grounding or
snap-to-fit correlations that occur in their accuracy, vetted and
error-corrected, though in parameters unshared by the differing worldviews

keeping it abstract, this is the same scenario for 'smartness' versus
intelligence...

     (smartness N (intel 2))  <===>  ((smartness N) intel 2')

      [truth <-----> truth]              [pT <-----> pT]

when instead the situation in terms of equilibrium, entropy, and exploit
tends toward...

     (smartness 2 (intel N))  <===>  ((smartness 2) intel N')

      [truth <-----> truth]              [pT <-----> pT]

and as mentioned many times before, any given concept has its validity
established within truth, whether the concept of [entropy] or [information]
or smartness, intelligence, or whatever. and so just taking it at face
(sign) value, does not make that interpretation true simply because it is
*believed* to be true. and yet that rigor can be missing in the evaluation
process, often a kind of self-corruption accompanying the ungrounded
observation and especially true believers who operate within a protected
boundary, 'managing' outside influences, and yet in this very interaction,
per entropy, they reveal their own state beyond their own accounting for it
and control over it, via energy and other relations.

     [pseudo-truth 2]  patterns   <===>   patterns  [truth N]

getting to the essence of the structural situation, of relativism versus
the empirical accounting for truth, shared and unshared, grounded and
ungrounded, and involving both accurate and inaccurate pattern matching and
if it is corrected or relied upon in its error, the above model in an
context of entropic two-way exchange... (a balancing of the forces if you
will...)

though through a false perspective, this basic relation could be reversed
via tromp-l'oiel effects, such that a masked condition exists and the
structural relation is asymmetrical and of masquerade...

     [pseudo-truth N]  patterns   <===>   patterns  [truth 2']

whereby:

     (pseudo-truth N)  ===>  ((pseudo-truth N) truth 2')

though in this structural imbalance, via the ungrounded condition, it is an
unintentional two-way interaction that through this opening allows
unintended access to the protected perimeter via this basic exchange...

     (pseudo-truth N (truth 2))  <===  ((pT N) truth 2')

...in other words, the *appearance* may exist one of a one-way hierarchical
exchange where information is being extracted from oneside via an attack or
interrogation or biased relation... where pseudo-truth "knows" the state of
'machine 2' from its island viewpoint of relativistic truth...

     (pseudo-truth N) ===>  ((pT N) truth 2')

                          [truth <-----> truth]

...and yet this viewpoint or belief can be _ungrounded, the perception of
truth illusory, inaccurate, even while achieving a pattern match verifying
and validating its inaccurate, corrupted model of truth. in addition, via
transference, the reverse occurs, whereby the observer is theirself
effected by the observation and thus 'observed' in the entropic exchange,
via structural information that aligns with or is at odds with the given
modeling and its parameters of existence, that leak data that compares or
contrasts with unknowns and vetted truth and thus can establish and
correlate with this truth even while restricted or protected externally,
believed inaccessible (even invisible people in other dimensionality betray
themselves this way, via allegiance with or hostility to higher truth)

     (pseudo-truth N) ===>  ((pT N) truth 2')

          "true!"            [pT <-----> pT]

so what is proposed to occur is that in this biased situation, ungrounded
belief can be confirmed and match a pattern (A=A -> B=B) whereby it can
verify or validate limitless notions (pseudo-N equivalent) yet that is not
accurate or actually true, yet uncorrected and due to protected boundary,
allowed to be 'real' within given constraints- for lack of feedback that
would challenge the belief system, else to censor or have deception going
on that promotes this relation as a false perspective, the setup necessary
for the subsequent takedown.

     (pseudo-truth N (truth 2))  <===>  ((pT N) truth 2')

                                      [truth <-----> truth]

the idea then was that this goes both ways, and the appearance of 'machine
2' within the domain of 'machine 1' may go unrecognized in its hidden and
unaccounted for dimensionality that is active within a realm of entropy and
information exchange as it ties into energy and matter in terms of
patterning and perhaps provides a basis for imagining its intuitive or felt
quality, as knowing is accurately grounded and becomes compass and
navigational aid, versus ungrounded knowing that leads to being lost and
having inaccurate maps and wrong directions and sensibility, at odds with
actual nature...

     (pseudo-truth N (truth 2))  <===>  ((pT N) truth 2')

the point of seeking to account for this condition of masquerade in terms
of its shared and unshared patterning and in terms of its groundedness in
relation to empirical truth, is that the situation could *appear* from a
given perspective, and within restricted parameters, to validate a given
viewpoint while actually existing or operating beyond it, in other
parameters and boundaries that remain a protected threshold, that cannot be
observed or that goes unrecognized more finite observers, thereby the limit
of sensibility, or computability, of patterning, as it relates to what is
and what cannot be matched, via its identification, recognition in real
terms versus terms of belief that can be in error, inaccurate, unreal, or
self-serving to a given bias, predetermined viewpoint, or values that
restrict, seek to control, and-or rationalize existence in a too-small
framework (in this way, the belief in 'N-awareness' can actually be that of
a restricted binary finiteness, where expansion of view and its
limitlessness could result from warping, skew, distortion serving falsity
than in truth that is expansive... in this way, the boundary folds upon
itself, encompasses itself as ideology, creating a false dome and
constellations, given enough time)

     (pseudo-truth N (truth 2))  <===>  ((pT N) truth 2')

         [truth <---> truth]              [pT <---> pT]

the unintended consequence would be that 'machine 1' betrays and grants
access to its inner state via this exchange and interaction, yet
unknowingly. and thereby its unaccounted for truth is accessible to another
who exists and observes truth, while it may be denied within operational
beliefs, (left) thus the leaking of information that balances the
interaction, the seeming benefit of onesidedness (right) actually has a
hidden cost, a revealing involves via equilibrium and entropy, balancing
the exchange. yet the evaluation of data, its parsing and verification, may
also not be accurate across this span, and thus 'pseudo-intelligence' could
glean factoids that validate ideological beliefs, via relations in
masquerade between pT and T, as pT assumes the role of TRUTH and truth
related to and perceived as if the 'known' mimic, when in actuality the
situation is reversed.

     (pseudo-truth 2 (truth N))  <===>  ((pT 2) truth N)

         [truth <---> truth]              [pT <---> pT]

this modeling remains abstract, a story about these dynamics, like a cave
diagram seeking to convey the communicative or other aspects of information
exchange as symmetry and asymmetry are involved, and how this relates to
pattern matching, and resources based in comprehensive pattern evaluations
and how this differs between grounded and ungrounded observations and
relations by default.

     (pseudo-truth 2 (truth N))  <===>  ((pT 2) truth N)

           [pT <---> T]                  [pT <---> T]

...these are the more accurate dynamics, though even moreso:

     (pseudo-truth 2 (truth N))  <===>  ((pT 2) truth N)

           [pT.2 <---> t.N)             [pT.2 <---> t.N)

though the appearance may indicate otherwise, from a biased perspective.
>>> truth would be moving throughout this system, and the emulation of it (its
>>> mask) would likewise be transferred, yet only one version is accurate at
>>> the level of verification as truth, while the other validates and relies
>>> upon its [signage] instead. this is the fundamental issue of patterns and
>>> their connection with truth, in a security context, as related to
>>> "information" and quasi-entropy, entropy-as-sign and entropy-as-truth.
>>>
>>

E1335, 42, 812
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From griffin at cryptolab.net  Wed Nov 13 13:23:13 2013
From: griffin at cryptolab.net (Griffin Boyce)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 16:23:13 -0500
Subject: Brazil and Germany issue joint UN resolution on Digital Privacy
In-Reply-To: <5283E466.4060201@witmond.nl>
References: <52839CE3.2000202@opentechinstitute.org>
 <52839E92.2010806@cryptolab.net> <5283E466.4060201@witmond.nl>
Message-ID: <5283EDC1.7010408@cryptolab.net>

On 11/13/2013 03:43 PM, Guido Witmond wrote:
>   The problem is endemic... . 

You joke, but... ;-)  Apparently you're not allowed to directly access
the PDF, it must be framed.  This link has been working really well:
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A%2FC.3%2F68%2FL.45

~Griffin

-- 
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

PGP: 0xD9D4CADEE3B67E7AB2C05717E331FD29AE792C97
OTR: saint at jabber.ccc.de

From shelley at misanthropia.info  Wed Nov 13 17:28:00 2013
From: shelley at misanthropia.info (shelley at misanthropia.info)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 17:28:00 -0800
Subject: Brazil and Germany issue joint UN resolution on Digital Privacy
In-Reply-To: <52840B2F.2080305@witmond.nl>
References: <52839CE3.2000202@opentechinstitute.org>
 <52839E92.2010806@cryptolab.net> <5283E466.4060201@witmond.nl>
 <5283EDC1.7010408@cryptolab.net> <52840B2F.2080305@witmond.nl>
Message-ID: <1384392480.14309.47214977.4F1D7310@webmail.messagingengine.com>

Same experience as Guido when trying to dl using Griffin's link.  (I
don't allow cookies or .js either.)  Kind of ironic, given the topic is
digital privacy...

JYA will likely (or has already) post it on Cryptome, I'll get it there.

On Wed, Nov 13, 2013, at 03:28 PM, Guido Witmond wrote:

> Thanks Griffin but even using that link, it won't work without cookies,
> perhaps tons of javascript and loads of 'user trackers'. I'll try later
> from Tor in a throw-away VM.
> 
> The endemic part is that even the UN, known for their humanitarian work
> builds crappy websites.
> 
> Guido.
> 
> Email had 1 attachment:
> + signature.asc
>   1k (application/pgp-signature)

From l at odewijk.nl  Wed Nov 13 08:47:33 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 17:47:33 +0100
Subject: (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant,
 space station (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <20131113001050.GN18544@hexapodia.org>
References: 

 <20131113001050.GN18544@hexapodia.org>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/13 Andy Isaacson 

> Reading the reports charitably, I would suspect that the Windows malware
> delivery mechanism might have been transported to the ISS, but would
> have been inactive there in the absence of a Step7 installation for the
> intermediate stage to infect.

I hadn't thought they'd write it that way. In this way it makes sense.
Thank you for your response.
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From juan.g71 at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 13:22:10 2013
From: juan.g71 at gmail.com (Juan Garofalo)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 18:22:10 -0300
Subject: Brazil and Germany issue joint UN resolution on Digital Privacy
In-Reply-To: <5283E466.4060201@witmond.nl>
References: <52839CE3.2000202@opentechinstitute.org>
 <52839E92.2010806@cryptolab.net> <5283E466.4060201@witmond.nl>
Message-ID: <22B80E7169D2B4904C1C5CA6@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>

--On Wednesday, November 13, 2013 9:43 PM +0100 Guido Witmond
 wrote:

> Otherwise you have reached this site through unauthorized means.
> 

	Damn. You cover's been blown...

> 
> 
> The problem is endemic...
> 
> Guido.
> 
>  

From indeyets at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 06:52:13 2013
From: indeyets at gmail.com (Alexey Zakhlestin)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 18:52:13 +0400
Subject: The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone
In-Reply-To: <20131113085409.GO5661@leitl.org>
References: <20131113085409.GO5661@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <5283921D.3020104@gmail.com>

Reminded me of a good old article…

http://blog.mecheye.net/2012/12/bytecode/

Bytecode
Posted on December 9, 2012	

What is the most commonly used bytecode language in the world? Java
(JVM Bytecode)? .NET (CLI)? Flash (AVM1/AVM2)? Nope. There’s a few that
you use every day, simply by turning on your computer, or tablet, or
even phone. You don’t even have to start an application or visit a
webpage.

ACPI

The most obvious is the large, gargantuan specification known as
“ACPI”. The “Advanced Configuration and Power Interface” specification
lives up to its name, with the most recent specification being a
mammoth document that weighs in at almost 1000 pages. And yes,
operating systems are expected to implement this. The entire thing. The
bytecode part is hidden deep, but it’s seen in chapter 20, under “ACPI
Machine Language”, describing a semi-register VM with all the usuals:
Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide, standard inequalities and equalities,
but then throws in other fun things like ToHexString and Mid
(substring). Look even further and you’ll see a full object model,
system properties, as well as an asynchronous signal mechanism so that
devices are notified about when those system properties change.

Most devices, of course, have a requirement of nothing less than a full
implementation of ACPI, so of course all this code is implemented in
your kernel, running at early boot. It parallels the complexity of a
full JavaScript environment with its type system and system bindings,
with the program code supplied directly over the wire from any device
you plug in. Because the specification is so complex, an OS-independent
reference implementation was created by Intel, and this is the
implementation that’s used in the Linux kernel, the BSDs (including Mac
OS X), and the fun toy ReactOS, HaikuOS kernels. I don’t know if it’s
used by Windows or not. Since the specification’s got Microsoft’s name
on it, I assume their implementation was created long before ACPICA.

Fonts

After that, want to have a graphical boot loader? Simply rendering an
OpenType font (well, only OpenType fonts with CFF glyphs, but the
complexities of the OpenType font format is a subject for another day)
requires parsing the Type 2 Glyph Format, which indeed involves a
custom bytecode format to establish glyphs. This one’s even more
interesting: it’s a real stack-based interpreter, and it even has a
“random” opcode to make random glyphs at runtime. I can’t imagine this
ever be useful, but it’s there, and it’s implemented by FreeType, so I
can only assume it’s used by some fonts from in the real world. This
bytecode interpreter also contained at one time a stack overflow
vulnerability which was what jailbroke the iPhone in JailbreakMe.com
v2.0, with the OTF file being loaded by Apple’s custom PDF viewer.

This glyph language is based on and is a stripped down version of
PostScript. Actual PostScript involves a full turing-complete
register/stack-based hybrid virtual machine based on Forth. The
drawbacks of this system (looping forever, interpreting the entire
script to draw a specific page because of complex state) were the major
motivations for the PDF format — while based on PostScript, it doesn’t
have much shared document state, and doesn’t allow any arbitrary flow
control operations. In this model, someone (even an automated program)
could easily verify that a graphic was encapsulated, not doing
different things depending on input, and that it terminated at some
point.

And, of course, since fonts are complicated, and OpenType is
complicated, OpenType also includes all of TrueType, which includes a
bytecode-based hinting model to ensure that your fonts look correct at
all resolutions. I won’t ramble on about it, but here’s the FreeType
implementation. I don’t know of anything interesting happening to this.
Seems there was a CVE for it at one time.

To get this article to display on screen, it’s very likely that
thousands of these tiny little microprograms ran, once for each glyph
shape in each font.

Packet filtering

Further on, if you want to capture a network packet with tcpdump or
libpcap (or one of its users like Wireshark), it’s being filtered
through the Berkeley Packet Filter, a custom register-based bytecode.
The performance impact of this at one time was too large for people
debugging network issues, so a simple JIT compiler was put into the
kernel, under an experimental sysctl flag.

As a piece of historical interest, an earlier version of the BPF code
was part of the code claimed to be infringing part of the SCO lawsuits
(page 15), but was actually part of BSD4.3 code that was copied to the
Linux kernel. The original BSD code was eventually replaced with the
current architecture, known as the Linux Socket Filter, in Linux 2.2
(which I can’t easily link to, as there’s no public repository of the
Linux kernel code with pre-git history, as far as I know).

What about it?

The popularity of bytecode as a general and flexible solution to
problems is alluring, but it’s not without its complexities and faults,
with such major security implications (an entire iPhone jailbreak from
incorrect stack overflow checking!) and insane implementation
requirements (so much that we only have one major implementation of
ACPI used across all OSes that we can check).

The four examples also bring out something interesting: the wildly
different approaches that can be taken to a bytecode language. In the
case of ACPI, it’s an interesting take on what I can only imagine is
scope creep on an originally declarative table specification, bringing
it to the mess today. The Type 1 Glyph and TrueType Hinting languages
are basic stack-based interpreters, showing their PostScript heritage.
And BPF is a register-based interpreter, which ends up with a
relatively odd register-based language that can really only do simple
operations.

Note, though, that all of these implementations above have had security
issues in their implementations, with numerous CVEs for each one,
because bytecode interpreter implementations are hard to get right. So,
to other hackers: do you know of any other low-level, esoteric custom
bytecode specifications like these? And to spec writers: did you really
need that flexibility?

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From indeyets at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 08:08:25 2013
From: indeyets at gmail.com (Alexey Zakhlestin)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:08:25 +0400
Subject: passwords! (p2)
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <5283A3F9.6010204@gmail.com>

On 13.11.13, 6:40, brian carroll wrote:

> in other words; the password would not be:
> 
>     [mordify][sunflower-icon][fort%20lauderdale][3.124]

the problem is, that in your scenario entropy would still be limited to
this string. everything else is a reproducible computation.

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From jamesd at echeque.com  Wed Nov 13 02:33:18 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:33:18 +1000
Subject: Fwd: the new 2014 Add-Only Sets
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: <5283556E.100@echeque.com>

> Okay, that's it! I think Design "2" is a good one. It has good
> security against rollback or selection attacks by malicious servers
> (assuming some kind of whitelisting of servers! Which is ticket #467
> and is not yet implemented.) And, it doesn't go too far over the top
> in terms of complexity; it seems more intuitive to me than (my vague
> memories of) previous attempts to design add-only sets for LAFS.

A malicious adder, who controlled the a server or communications with 
the server could make up a fictitious history, so that one reader sees 
one history, and another reader sees a different history.

So I don't see that this differs substantially from complete write 
authority.

What one would like is that many people could add, but only a few 
people, or no people, could delete or change, in order that history 
cannot be rewritten, and that every reader will see the same history, 
rather than history being adjusted to be different for different readers.

There was a proposal to do something like this to protect against man in 
the middle attacks by CAs.

The proposal was to use append only files to construct a global map from 
strings to data associated with those strings, such that everyone was 
guaranteed to see the same map, and the same map history - though it is 
not clear to me that append only files are sufficient to accomplish that 
goal.  The map would be used to relate domain names to certificates, 
guaranteeing that everyone, including the rightful owner of the domain, 
saw the same certificate.

I do not recall how they proposed to implement append only files, nor 
the global and same for everyone map.

From jya at pipeline.com  Wed Nov 13 17:39:11 2013
From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:39:11 -0500
Subject: Brazil and Germany issue joint UN resolution on Digital Privacy
In-Reply-To: <1384392480.14309.47214977.4F1D7310@webmail.messagingengine .com>
References: <52839CE3.2000202@opentechinstitute.org>
 <52839E92.2010806@cryptolab.net> <5283E466.4060201@witmond.nl>
 <5283EDC1.7010408@cryptolab.net> <52840B2F.2080305@witmond.nl>
 <1384392480.14309.47214977.4F1D7310@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: 

Yes:

http://cryptome.org/2013/11/br-de-dig-priv.pdf

From grarpamp at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 18:04:59 2013
From: grarpamp at gmail.com (grarpamp)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 21:04:59 -0500
Subject: [tor-talk] BitMail.sf.net v 0.6 - Secure Encrypting Email Client
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: 

On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 2:38 AM,   wrote:
> Hello,
>
> can BitMail.sf.net as a p2p email tool for encrypted Email (and hybrid with IMAP-Email) be regarded as a reference model for research to create a secure Email Client? as it uses both, gnupg and openssl!
>
> http://bitmail.sourceforge.net/
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/bitmail/files/BitMail_0.6_2088RC1/
>
> Does anyone know, if it runs over Tor?
>
> Sincerely, Robert

So... 'Robert', who do you work for? NSA? Financial crime?
I mean, with the net moving to encrypt everything
we'd expect to see many new and unknown yet seemingly
polished tools being dropped on unsuspecting first time
users just to collect their key material.
Surely someone will have fun with your windows binaries.

From guido at witmond.nl  Wed Nov 13 12:43:18 2013
From: guido at witmond.nl (Guido Witmond)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 21:43:18 +0100
Subject: Brazil and Germany issue joint UN resolution on Digital Privacy
In-Reply-To: <52839E92.2010806@cryptolab.net>
References: <52839CE3.2000202@opentechinstitute.org>
 <52839E92.2010806@cryptolab.net>
Message-ID: <5283E466.4060201@witmond.nl>

On 11/13/13 16:45, Griffin Boyce wrote:
>   In it, they state that they are "deeply concerned" at human rights
> violations resulting from digital surveillance and the overall trend
> away from privacy.  It's a great read, and I *highly* recommend sharing
> it with your friends.
> 
> http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N13/544/07/PDF/N1354407.pdf

Brazil and Germany might issue a statement but the UN itself gives me this:

There is an end-user problem. If you have reached this site from a web link,
- Through your internet options, adjust your privacy settings to allow
cookies or
- Check your security settings and make sure this site has not been
blocked or
- You are probably using a very slow link that may not work well with
this application.
Otherwise you have reached this site through unauthorized means.

The problem is endemic...

Guido.

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From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Wed Nov 13 21:58:02 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 23:58:02 -0600
Subject: expanded security model (was passwords! (p2) deux)
Message-ID: 

attempt to clarify an overlapping conceptualization........

      (pseudo-truth 2 (truth N))  <===>  ((pT 2) truth N)

            [pT <---> T]                  [pT <---> T]

 ...these are the more accurate dynamics, though even moreso:

      (pseudo-truth 2 (truth N))  <===>  ((pT 2) truth N)

        [pT.binary <---> t.N)           [pT.binary <---> t.N)

skipped a step in the diagram above, meant to correlate how pT & binarism
are symbiotic and often correlate with ideology and 'closed'
rationalizations,
though the original approach referenced 'machine 2' that suddenly morphed
into representing a 2-value or binary relation, viz. symmetry with machine
N.

(such frameworks probably need to be broken down into 2 or 3x more detail
to actually get into the mechanisms, so these are only abstract sketches,
though could be further described as structures or 'additional
variables'...)

though the appearance may indicate otherwise, from a biased perspective.
> truth would be moving throughout this system, and the emulation of it
> {its *mimicking* via pseudo-truth} would likewise be transferred, yet
> only one version is accurate at the level of verification as truth,
> while the other validates and relies upon its [signage] instead.
> this is the fundamental issue of patterns and their connection
> with truth, in a security context, as related to "information"
> and quasi-entropy, entropy-as-sign and entropy-as-truth.

(note: wrote mask for some reason above, i think that was inadvertent
bullshit because it makes no sense, stills do not have the words to
describe what is going on, abstraction level too high, too confusing
the overlapping frameworks of multiple meaning, though wanted to
to attempt to make a correction via the diagram that follows..)

forgot to diagram the 'information' transfer via the exchange, as the
differing models migrate toward their associated models. in this way...

       (pT 2 (truth N))  <=:=>  ((pT 2) truth N)

                           :
             pT   <--------:-------- [pT = pT]
                           :
          [T = T]  --------:-------->   T
                           :

 such that:

       (pT 2 (truth N))  <=:=>  ((pT 2) truth N)

                           :
          [pT = pT]        :         [T = T]
                           :

          -ungrounded-              -grounded-
            relation                 relation

also of potential relevance with regard to information
as it relates to entropy, is the proposition that 'truth'
precedes falsity and establishes the means to evaluate it.

this is something i have concluded after years of thinking
about the dynamics though have not formalized it as of yet
though it just seems self-evident, especially in terms of
the cosmos, everything relates in truth, and the variance
within that structure (mutations, anomalies, errors) that
is already established in a foundation built within and
upon shared truth as framework- literally, ~continuum as
truth relates to circuitry, informational scaffolding.

this easily gets into Sartre or Heidegger metaphysics,
of being and non-being (then related to nothing), as it
also involves truth and not-truth in relation to falsity,
though this is likewise ambiguous, with /unknowns/ and
other fundamental concepts like partial-truth, pseudo-truth
(one in the same, in some cases, depending upon if it is
distinguished and-or purified as truth, removed of error
or structurally reliant upon it for a given view or relation).

snooker, eight ball, trickshot
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From guido at witmond.nl  Wed Nov 13 15:28:47 2013
From: guido at witmond.nl (Guido Witmond)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 00:28:47 +0100
Subject: Brazil and Germany issue joint UN resolution on Digital Privacy
In-Reply-To: <5283EDC1.7010408@cryptolab.net>
References: <52839CE3.2000202@opentechinstitute.org>
 <52839E92.2010806@cryptolab.net> <5283E466.4060201@witmond.nl>
 <5283EDC1.7010408@cryptolab.net>
Message-ID: <52840B2F.2080305@witmond.nl>

On 11/13/13 22:23, Griffin Boyce wrote:
> On 11/13/2013 03:43 PM, Guido Witmond wrote:
>>   The problem is endemic... . 
> 
> You joke, but... ;-)  Apparently you're not allowed to directly access
> the PDF, it must be framed.  This link has been working really well:
> http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A%2FC.3%2F68%2FL.45

Thanks Griffin but even using that link, it won't work without cookies,
perhaps tons of javascript and loads of 'user trackers'. I'll try later
from Tor in a throw-away VM.

The endemic part is that even the UN, known for their humanitarian work
builds crappy websites.

Guido.

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From measl at mfn.org  Thu Nov 14 04:03:30 2013
From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:03:30 -0600 (CST)
Subject: (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant,
 space station (fwd)
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: 

On Tue, 12 Nov 2013, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:

> Regardless, the protip is: don't windows for critical systems.

Wrong lesson.  Windows was used, but was not necessary.  The lesson here 
is to reinforce the airgap with restrictions on who and how software and 
hardware is connected to critical systems.  No critical system should be 
connected to anything other than it's own closed system unless there is an 
absolutely unavoidable reason (such as code repair).  Where the system 
must be disturbed, nothing that connects to the protected system should be 
unexamined prior to connection, and the examination should be meticulously 
performed, by qualified personnel (and there should always be a 
lab-duplicate upon which all such events are dry-runned).

//Alif

-- 
Those who make peaceful change impossible,
make violent revolution inevitable.

An American Spring is coming:
   one way or another.

From measl at mfn.org  Thu Nov 14 04:27:12 2013
From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:27:12 -0600 (CST)
Subject: passwords
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: 

On Wed, 13 Nov 2013, Joseph Tag wrote:

> I prefer old liscencd plates; maybe repeated.
> 

> 
> Also zip codes: zip02134ma .

"Send it to Zoom!"

Sorry, couldn't resist[1]...

//Alif

[1] "ZOOM!" was a PBS television program in the late 1970s/early 1980s, 
which was aimed at the post-Sesame Street kids (mine qualified). The 
program always closed with a little musical ditty that has forever emblazoned 
the zip code "02134" upon my scrambled brain:

	...
	Send it to Zoom!
	Boston, Mass!
	Oh, Two One, Three Four...
	Send it to ZOOM!

-- 
Those who make peaceful change impossible,
make violent revolution inevitable.

An American Spring is coming:
   one way or another.

From measl at mfn.org  Thu Nov 14 04:38:10 2013
From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:38:10 -0600 (CST)
Subject: (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant,
 space station (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <99c4e826-ec42-4232-8475-85df5a114722@email.android.com>
References: 

 <99c4e826-ec42-4232-8475-85df5a114722@email.android.com>
Message-ID: 

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013, Cathal Garvey (Phone) wrote:

> But what if they use BadBIOS to beam into space on a microwave carrier 
> by modulating the PSU of all infected laptops at once?!

I understand your point, however, we aren't talking about just any old 
system, we are discussing the most critical parts of electronic 
infrastructure here.  When you've got a computer controlling fission, or 
power distribution {$your critical infrastructure of choice}, this is 
simply a Best Practice.  Hell, if we can do this for crap like public 
Internet carriers[1], why is it unreasonable to do this for actual 
critical systems?

//Alif

[1] I have worked for or with several internet carriers who enforced this 
kind of security around their core systems: the smallest was a very small 
regional carrier, while the largest was a multinational NSP.  The only 
potential losses were dollars - painful but not necessarily fatal, or with 
any national security interest.  If a dipshit regional carrier can do 
this, a power company failing to do so is simply negligent.

And yes, I know that power companies are notoriously casual with their 
SCADA systems: it makes me crazy to think about it.
-- 
Those who make peaceful change impossible,
make violent revolution inevitable.

An American Spring is coming:
   one way or another.

From dave at farber.net  Thu Nov 14 08:28:48 2013
From: dave at farber.net (Dave Farber)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:28:48 -0500
Subject: [IP] My blog today on "Permissionless Innovation"
Message-ID: 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Young, David E*
Date: Thursday, November 14, 2013
Subject: My blog today on "Permissionless Innovation"
To: "Dave Farber (dave at farber.net)" 

Dave, Perhaps of interest…

http://publicpolicy.verizon.com/blog/entry/permissionless-innovation-on-the-internet

Permissionless Innovation On the Internet

*David Young *

Nov 14 | David Young 

In a story posted yesterday – A Remedy to Clueless Tech
Lawyers–
my old friend Jonathan Askin describes some work he did as a young
lawyer
for another good friend of mine, tech innovator Jeff
Pulver.
In the mid-90s, Jeff was trying to create a peer-to-peer communications
service called Free World Dial-Up
(FWD)
.

Jonathan beats himself up in his essay because, as Jeff’s lawyer (or “wartime
consigliere ” as he
called himself), he “put the reins on FWD” and advised Jeff to ask the FCC
for permission “to launch FWD free of regulatory constraints.” Jonathan
rightly understood that the FCC could decide to regulate FWD as a *telephone
service*, and sought to protect his client from that risk.

“Permissionless
Innovation”
may be one of the key features of the Internet, but as Jonathan rightly
understood, regulated companies and service providers too often have to ask
permission from their regulators before innovating, or else face potential
consequences.

After more than a year, the FCC agreed that FWD was an “information
service” not subject to common carrier telephone regulation. Unfortunately
for Jeff Pulver, the many months it took to get permission from the FCC
allowed a non-US company  to innovate
freely and capture the market opportunity. In 2013, you may not have ever
heard of Free World Dial-Up, but you’ve certainly heard of Skype.

In retrospect, perhaps Jonathan would have advised his client to “just do
it,” as the delay waiting for permission was indeed a very bad thing for
FWD. However, the eventual FCC decision – the “Pulver
Order”
- was a critically important precedent. Jeff’s sacrifice helped pave the
way for innovators everywhere to offer new services in the US (and we owe
him our heartfelt thanks!).

As a young phone company engineer trying to get into broadband and VOIP in
the 90s, I experienced firsthand the problem of needing regulatory
permission to try new, innovative things that don’t fit into the existing
regulatory buckets. That is why decisions like the Pulver Order that
protect some new services like FWD from common carrier regulation, the “Vonage
Order ”
protecting VoIP services from state telephone regulators, the FCC actions
protecting cable modem broadband service from regulation by 30,000 local
franchise authorities ,
and the FCC orders confirming that traditional common carriage regulation
doesn’t apply to
broadbandservices,
were so important to enabling innovation without the regulatory
overhang that early innovators like Pulver and Askin faced.

Permissionless innovation shouldn’t be reserved for just certain types of
innovators (like software developers) and not others. Given the dynamism,
innovation and competition that are the hallmarks of today’s Internet
ecosystem, the ability to innovate without having to seek permission from
regulators at every step along the way is critical to the continued success
of the Internet, and must be preserved.

-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/25094221-ddf8422b
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

----- End forwarded message -----

From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Thu Nov 14 04:23:17 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey (Phone))
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:23:17 +0000
Subject: (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant,
 space station (fwd)
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: <99c4e826-ec42-4232-8475-85df5a114722@email.android.com>

But what if they use BadBIOS to beam into space on a microwave carrier by modulating the PSU of all infected laptops at once?!

"J.A. Terranson"  wrote:
>
>On Tue, 12 Nov 2013, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
>
>> Regardless, the protip is: don't windows for critical systems.
>
>Wrong lesson.  Windows was used, but was not necessary.  The lesson
>here 
>is to reinforce the airgap with restrictions on who and how software
>and 
>hardware is connected to critical systems.  No critical system should
>be 
>connected to anything other than it's own closed system unless there is
>an 
>absolutely unavoidable reason (such as code repair).  Where the system 
>must be disturbed, nothing that connects to the protected system should
>be 
>unexamined prior to connection, and the examination should be
>meticulously 
>performed, by qualified personnel (and there should always be a 
>lab-duplicate upon which all such events are dry-runned).
>
>//Alif
>
>-- 
>Those who make peaceful change impossible,
>make violent revolution inevitable.
>
>An American Spring is coming:
>   one way or another.

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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From measl at mfn.org  Thu Nov 14 11:12:51 2013
From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:12:51 -0600 (CST)
Subject: (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant,
 space station (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <20131114153830.0d24840d@Neptune>
References: 

 <99c4e826-ec42-4232-8475-85df5a114722@email.android.com>

 <20131114153830.0d24840d@Neptune>
Message-ID: 

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013, Cathal Garvey wrote:

> Also, I was kidding. :)

It's pretty hard to tell the difference between kidding and sarcasm making 
an argument I have heard more times than I like to believe: still, I'm 
glad it was the former and not the latter!

//Alif
--
Those who make peaceful change impossible,
make violent revolution inevitable.

An American Spring is coming:
   one way or another.

> On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:38:10 -0600 (CST)
> "J.A. Terranson"  wrote:
> 
> > 
> > On Thu, 14 Nov 2013, Cathal Garvey (Phone) wrote:
> > 
> > > But what if they use BadBIOS to beam into space on a microwave
> > > carrier by modulating the PSU of all infected laptops at once?!
> > 
> > I understand your point, however, we aren't talking about just any
> > old system, we are discussing the most critical parts of electronic 
> > infrastructure here.  When you've got a computer controlling fission,
> > or power distribution {$your critical infrastructure of choice}, this
> > is simply a Best Practice.  Hell, if we can do this for crap like
> > public Internet carriers[1], why is it unreasonable to do this for
> > actual critical systems?
> > 
> > //Alif

From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Thu Nov 14 12:40:27 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 14:40:27 -0600
Subject: superconductivity (urls)
Message-ID: 

// what about indoor light pollution from little LEDs on various equipment
// that create an ambient glow everywhere. dark skies initiative for
indoors!

Computers and phones in children's bedrooms
'can cause anxiety and sleep loss'  (via drudgereport)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10448123/Computers-and-phones-in-childrens-bedrooms-can-cause-anxiety-and-sleep-loss.html

     "The paper’s lead author, psychologist Dr Jennifer Vriend, of
Dalhousie University in Canada, said: “One of the biggest culprits for
inadequate and disturbed sleep is technology. "

Dark-sky movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark-sky_movement

// presumably like dams, wave power could also have ecosystem
// consequences for marine life, likewise underwater comms,  sonar
// as potentially related to mass beachings of whales, dolphins, etc.

Solar Panels Frying Birds Along Major Migration Path  (via drudge)
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/12/Oops-Solar-Energy-Plants-are-Killing-Rare-birds

[Birds dying in two ways... crashing into mirage-like 'areas of water'
and having feathers torched via reflected sunlight]

Accidental discovery dramatically improves electrical conductivity
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-accidental-discovery-electrical.html

     "Quite by accident, Washington State University researchers have
achieved a 400-fold increase in the electrical conductivity of a crystal
simply by exposing it to light. The effect, which lasted for days after the
light was turned off, could dramatically improve the performance of devices
like computer chips." ...

re: holographic memory, data storage inside crystal vs. on surface

[&]  Electrons with a "split personality" // anisotropy, metal, & lifetimes
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-electrons-personality.html

"Conventional or unconventional – depending on momentum"

" Up until now, the interaction of the electrons has generally been assumed
to be isotropic. "

"In terms of electrons, resistivity corresponds to the mean free path of
the electrons, i.e. the distance an average electron covers before bumping
into something – the shorter the mean free path, the higher the
resistivity. Generally, the higher the temperature the higher the
resistivity because the particles the electrons can collide with are moving
faster at higher temperatures which makes collisions more likely."  {what
is metal}

// amateur astronomy is in need of a massive technological upgrade,
// this tied to light pollution, environmental & urban planning issues.

How a Superconducting Camera Could Revolutionize Astrophysics
http://gizmodo.com/how-a-superconducting-camera-could-revolutionize-astrop-1463055643

film --> semiconductors --> hyperspectral superconductors

"Mazin's imaging device... dubbed the ARray Camera for Optical to
Near-infrared (IR) Spectrophotometry (ARCONS), sees all of the wavelengths
all of the times. It is literally the first imaging device to ever actually
see in color. It is also the first imaging device to utilize Microwave
Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs), a superconducting photon detector
used to measure energy across the electromagnetic spectrum."

[also waiting for this tech in consumer digital & video cameras,
going beyond visual parameters, using IR and UV imaging vs.
stylized filters- why not multispectral wavelength options.
hell, what if there was an 'electromagnetic signals' setting,
to visualize EM signaling in space as if kirlian photography]

Evelyn Glennie: How to truly listen  (video)
http://www.ted.com/talks/evelyn_glennie_shows_how_to_listen.html

description: In this soaring demonstration, deaf percussionist Evelyn
Glennie illustrates how listening to music involves much more than simply
letting sound waves hit your eardrums.

"... Allow your body is open up, to allow your body to be this resonating
chamber..."

"... please take note of the life of the sound after the initial strike..."

[bio] Evelyn Glennie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Glennie

// in approaching music independently i enjoyed this documentary a lot.
// her approach is unique, educational, instructive, and inspirational...
// about tuning into events, learning to ~listen with all the senses

Touch the Sound documentary
http://www.touch-the-sound.com/

Battle Cry  -- from the album: Shadow Behind The Iron Sun
https://myspace.com/variousartists-45950709/music/song/battle-cry-28420027-28241489

// if only geometry could be taught through these techniques,
// including origami tesslations, platonic solids, into music...

The Handheld Mathematics of Geometer Ron Resch  (video)
http://gizmodo.com/the-handheld-mathematics-of-geometer-ron-resch-1463859152

"testing out posed solutions..."

[bio] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Resch

note: the expandable structures seem ideal both for satellite or spacecraft
and also lunar habits or robotic missions, such as a small format
expandable base camp tent, etc. likewise, emergency tents or shelters,
perhaps even windtunnel testing of the dome to consider if anchored
structures could short-circuit hurricane winds via acting more like ground
vs walls; for instance, with certain hi-tech fabrics perhaps flexibility
and deformity is a strength. also, potential antennas, collapsible or not,
or even portable radio telescope/telemetry arrays.

how to fix any computer - The Oatmeal
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/fix_computer

∰ ≉ ⊊
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From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Thu Nov 14 07:38:30 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:38:30 +0000
Subject: (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant,
 space station (fwd)
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

 <99c4e826-ec42-4232-8475-85df5a114722@email.android.com>

Message-ID: <20131114153830.0d24840d@Neptune>

Also, I was kidding. :)

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:38:10 -0600 (CST)
"J.A. Terranson"  wrote:

> 
> On Thu, 14 Nov 2013, Cathal Garvey (Phone) wrote:
> 
> > But what if they use BadBIOS to beam into space on a microwave
> > carrier by modulating the PSU of all infected laptops at once?!
> 
> I understand your point, however, we aren't talking about just any
> old system, we are discussing the most critical parts of electronic 
> infrastructure here.  When you've got a computer controlling fission,
> or power distribution {$your critical infrastructure of choice}, this
> is simply a Best Practice.  Hell, if we can do this for crap like
> public Internet carriers[1], why is it unreasonable to do this for
> actual critical systems?
> 
> //Alif
> 
> [1] I have worked for or with several internet carriers who enforced
> this kind of security around their core systems: the smallest was a
> very small regional carrier, while the largest was a multinational
> NSP.  The only potential losses were dollars - painful but not
> necessarily fatal, or with any national security interest.  If a
> dipshit regional carrier can do this, a power company failing to do
> so is simply negligent.
> 
> And yes, I know that power companies are notoriously casual with
> their SCADA systems: it makes me crazy to think about it.

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From eugen at leitl.org  Thu Nov 14 12:02:52 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:02:52 +0100
Subject: [IP] My blog today on "Permissionless Innovation"
Message-ID: <20131114200252.GY5661@leitl.org>

----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber  -----

From europus at gmail.com  Fri Nov 15 03:48:35 2013
From: europus at gmail.com (Ulex Europae)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 06:48:35 -0500
Subject: [tor-talk] BitMail.sf.net v 0.6 - Secure Encrypting Email Client
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: <52860a15.43e3440a.4abd.ffffe2e3@mx.google.com>

At 09:04 PM 11/13/2013, grarpamp wrote:
>On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 2:38 AM,   wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > can BitMail.sf.net as a p2p email tool for encrypted Email (and 
> hybrid with IMAP-Email) be regarded as a reference model for 
> research to create a secure Email Client? as it uses both, gnupg and openssl!
> >
> > http://bitmail.sourceforge.net/
> > https://sourceforge.net/projects/bitmail/files/BitMail_0.6_2088RC1/
> >
> > Does anyone know, if it runs over Tor?
> >
> > Sincerely, Robert
>
>So... 'Robert', who do you work for? NSA? Financial crime?
>I mean, with the net moving to encrypt everything
>we'd expect to see many new and unknown yet seemingly
>polished tools being dropped on unsuspecting first time
>users just to collect their key material.
>Surely someone will have fun with your windows binaries.

Hmm, lots of lists I'm not subscribed to on the To: line, bad juju
on someone's part for the initial crosspost. Hopefully, those other
list maintainers will see and approve my comment, even though I'm
not subscribed to all those other lists:

I'm replying because, Sourceforge? They fell out of vogue when they
started bundling binary downloads with other executables, they deserve
to die a quick death for that as users flock to safer environs. 'Robert'
should upload his binaries to Github. Along with his source code. Then,
if the MD5 checksum on his compiled binaries matches the MD5 checksum
on the source code when it is compiled independently, he's golden. That
is how that works, how it is supposed to work. Accept no substitutes.

--

From coderman at gmail.com  Fri Nov 15 17:58:02 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 17:58:02 -0800
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
 <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>

Message-ID: 

On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 5:53 PM, Bryan Bishop  wrote:
> ...
> So GSM/CDMA phone calls are out of the question?

hey now, A0 is my favorite GSM mode!
 ;)

> What about debit/credit cards or ATM transactions?

this would be a PoS terminal employing encryption, not an individual themselves.

From kanzure at gmail.com  Fri Nov 15 17:53:41 2013
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 19:53:41 -0600
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>
References: 
 <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>
Message-ID: 

On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 7:40 PM, Dan Staples  wrote:
> everything will be using encryption by then. This could have the effect
> of simply barring him from using any sort of communicative digital
> technology...making many everyday tasks impossible.

So GSM/CDMA phone calls are out of the question? Does this bar him
from 911 service? What about debit/credit cards or ATM transactions?

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Fri Nov 15 18:09:20 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 20:09:20 -0600
Subject: passwords! (p5)
Message-ID: 

// incompleteness of completeness, additional oddity...

   if considering [password] as a bit-set instead of linear string,

   such that [p|a|s|s|w|o|r|d] could itself be variable, per bit,

   ex. [pass|word|1234|bluegreen]

   then, if a password service used this principle, instead of

   requiring just 8-12 alphanumerics plus allowed special characters

   as the basis for /security/, instead what if it was 3-4 sets instead,

   themselves having special rules...

   [set1|set2|set3|set4]

   in this way, a 'rolling password' could be developed in that

   the sequence could be arbitrary or change, given the instance

   or interaction, which may or may not include changing variables

   (months till b-day, temperature in zipcode, etc)

   in other words:

  [password]  --->  [pass][wo][r][ds]

  whereby, via its continual dynamic state, could exist in multiple

  versions by default, and then have this managed between client/server

  [1][2][3][4]  --->  [2][4][1][3]

  [pass]-[wo]-[r]-[ds]   --->   [wo]-[ds]-[pass]-[r]

  this could extend into sequences of not only alphanumerics

  through also icons (picked amongst many on the server, thus

  creating more unknowns), say choose 1 of available 20 icons,

  which is not included in stored password, nor its place in

  sequence knowable to attacker...

  [pass][icon13][wo][r][ds]   --->  [icon13][wo][ds][pass][r]

  thus a changing string made up of subsets rearranged that

  may even have non-stored variables [#], icons or other approach

       [3b]-[alphanum1a]-[5e]-[32^F]-[4d]-[icon]-[2c]

       [2c]-[3b]-[alphanum1a]-[4d]-[icon]-[67^F]-[5e]

  then the probabilities and computation is upped exponentially

  even if accessing some part of the correct code, which may not

  be reliably reused, seemingly the more subsets, more security

  from an initial attack-- thus even if one instance of passwords

  were found, they could be changed or even transformed into

  another set and detach from those lost, locking out else

  deactivating the previous versions. a lot could seemingly

  be done with this though a secure environment would be

  required which seems difficult to guarantee if not allow

  for sake of someone elses interests, known & unknown

𝓶 𝟡 𝑤
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From billstclair at gmail.com  Fri Nov 15 17:39:45 2013
From: billstclair at gmail.com (Bill St. Clair)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 20:39:45 -0500
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: 

On Friday, November 15, 2013, Privarchy Mee wrote:

>
> How can this be considered anything but cruel and unusual?
>

How can ANY prison term be considered as other than torture the most foul?

Bill
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From danstaples at disman.tl  Fri Nov 15 17:40:22 2013
From: danstaples at disman.tl (Dan Staples)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 20:40:22 -0500
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>

It's even more absurd considering the inevitable progress of technology
over the next 10 years of Hammond's sentence. If we do our jobs right,
everything will be using encryption by then. This could have the effect
of simply barring him from using any sort of communicative digital
technology...making many everyday tasks impossible.

The only exception in the sentence is his use of encryption as required
by employment. But it's hard enough for ex-felons to find a job after
getting released as it is...

On 11/15/2013 07:57 PM, Privarchy Mee wrote:
> Can any of you, most of whom I do not doubt are far more knowledgeable
> about cryptography and how it's conceptualised within the legal sphere,
> offer some insight regarding this?
> 
> https://twitter.com/CyMadD0x/status/401443518612512769
> 
> The claim is that Judge Loretta A. Preska, who sentenced Jeremy Hammond
> today, said that for the three years (post-release) that he was to spend
> under supervision, he will not be able to use encryption for
> communication or storage purposes(!) which is practically a legal edict
> to go and build a cabin by Walden Pond. How can this be considered
> anything but cruel and unusual?

-- 
http://disman.tl
OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9

From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Fri Nov 15 19:29:14 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 21:29:14 -0600
Subject: passwords! (p6)
Message-ID: 

additional layers of transformation could also be included

that use symmetries or other calculus-like transformations.

consider the previous example...

  [1][2][3][4]  --->  [2][4][1][3]

now consider if within each subset additional characteristics

could be modified, such that set 2 is mirrored by vertically

by the letters that obey these principles... and set 1 has its

letters in reverse... and sets 3 and 4 are rotated 180 degrees

  [pass]-[wo]-[r]-[ds]   --->   [mo]-[sp]-[ssap]-[J]

and that this could also be dynamic and change, for a given

instantiation of the base password as it is mediated for login,

as an ever-changing password with its own variability which

could change daily given, say, a range of 30 such criteria

that may or may not be accessible in various combinations

then rulesets would be important, what if some letters can be

transformed and others cannot, are substitutions chosen or

are only some characters changed, or how to deal with a

character with multiple options for superposition translation

this kind of exponential potential for passwords in a context

where the simple model is so simple to allow easy hacking,

what if systems were designed to be significantly more difficult

to access and that /time/ was leveraged to limit unauthorized

access and to limit, via relativism, what can be seen in a given

threshold or timeframe, to potentially make it impossible for

automated attacks of logins via brute-force via zombie-nets,

by making the odds more the opposite of what they are today,

given access, enough time and dictionaries, versus limiting

the exploitable window, limiting the time frame, and use of

dictionaries via increased variability that is never static, and

thus each login could tend more towards 1 in a million guess,

by chance, and have that be the repeated situation encountered

at login, versus allowing 10 million attempts to gain illegal access

it just seems common sense that perhaps it is made to be broken

and that without such introducing or allowing parameters of such

increased difficulty, that perhaps it is the design of the ecosystem itself

versus its merit in terms of 'actual security' versus what is allowable,

thus making the password issue itself that of a false perspective,

as if 8-12 alphanumerics w/special characters is maxing out possibilities

when instead limiting the questions to those parameters may force

another approach prematurely, which could be even worse, policy-wise

😺 😶 😈
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From skquinn at rushpost.com  Fri Nov 15 21:43:11 2013
From: skquinn at rushpost.com (Shawn K. Quinn)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 23:43:11 -0600
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <1384580591.31296.48157513.44E60EA5@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Fri, Nov 15, 2013, at 06:57 PM, Privarchy Mee wrote:
> The claim is that Judge Loretta A. Preska, who sentenced Jeremy Hammond
> today, said that for the three years (post-release) that he was to spend
> under supervision, he will not be able to use encryption for
> communication
> or storage purposes(!) which is practically a legal edict to go and build
> a
> cabin by Walden Pond. How can this be considered anything but cruel and
> unusual?

Simple explanation: Idiot judge who simply does not understand
technology and just wants good PR for the court. This is simply
unconscionable and unenforceable and will probably be at least
accidentally disobeyed at least once without the court's knowledge.

-- 
  Shawn K. Quinn
  skquinn at rushpost.com

From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Fri Nov 15 21:51:19 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 23:51:19 -0600
Subject: passwords! (p7)
Message-ID: 

// two other techniques not yet mentioned...

 consider the previous example once again:

     [pass]-[wo]-[r]-[ds]   --->   [mo]-[sp]-[ssap]-[J]

there could be multiple transformations (a->b->c) that

could involve switching the sequence of the set, and

other such ~operations, whether to the entire password

in aggregate (as string) or inside the separate 'bit' sets,

each potentially having overlapped or different changes

due to symmetry with alphanumerics (hiox), usually the

reference is to vertical, horizontal mirroring and rotation of

180 degrees, though this could also involve 90/270 degrees,

such that a pass could filter the entire string for 90 degrees,

as in the example below, or in other instance, only set 1, etc.

     [mo]-[sp]-[ssap]-[J]   --->   [3o]-[иp]-[ииap]-[J]

in this example, the letters 's' when rotated 90 degrees turn

into the russian lowercase 'и' via substitution.  likewise the

letter 'm' turned into a '3' via its partial rotation.  another rule

for bit set transformation could involve the contraction and

expansion of what is inside the set or the string en total...

such that in the original example, the duplicates letters

in a given set are dropped into a single letter... though

this could then double the other letters within the set...

     [ssap]   --->    [sap]   --->   [saapp]

therefore, a starting password string could in a given

instance change from nine to ten characters...

     [mospssapJ]   --->   [mospsaappJ]

a different take on this same technique of expansion

and contraction is more deconstructive, in that that

the 'intra-sign' or 'infra-sign' structure itself could be

tapped into as its own layer of character abstraction.

consider once again the basic example already used...

     [pass]-[wo]-[r]-[ds]   --->   [mo]-[sp]-[ssap]-[J]

it is possible to modify what is within each bit set in

a range of ways, this transformative process equivalent

in some sense to calculus, relying on geometric ordering

as it relates to typography though could extend further into

linguistics (phonetics, meaning, grammar, syntax) variables.

the focus of consideration is what could potentially happen

to meaningfully transform a bit set or bit string and then use

this as a framework or basis for a ruleset for such processing

take the first bit set in the transformed version:  [mo]

it can be broken down or opened up via its correspondence

with other structuring, so for example the issue of rotation is

such that 3,w,E,m are variables for rotation while o is the same:

     [3o|wo|Eo|mo]

so in that particular range of parameter, the superposition for the

original letter 'm' is more varied than for the letter 'o' in the same set

further though, the structure of the sign itself (at the intra-bit set level

of measurement), that of a single letter, could also be the basis for

such transformative rulesets that further expand or contract 'variables'

in that through their "options" or optionality, provide various structures

that may or may not be used in given bit set permutations at multiple

levels of the letter sign, intra-bit set, inter-bit set, and bit set string

     [mo]

again, consider the potential letter-based structuring that could be

broken apart and merged/fused together to either expand or contract

the given alphabetic and likewise other alphanumeric example...

     [mo]   --->   [rno]  --->   [rn()]

the letter 'm' is fragmented into a letter 'r' and letter 'n' which combine

back into the letter m via proximity or adjacency, and the letter 'o' can

be abstracted into paired symmetric parentheses. what this also does

is take the bit set and expand it from two letters to four characters

the takeaway is that the length of a password could be variable given

what rules are involved, such that a base password could expand and-

or contract and itself be variable across many of its attributes, existing

in a potential state or superposition, that is more the parameters of a

Schrödinger scenario than a pattern-match in a dictionary context

for any given [password] that could be a million potential permutations

consider the following example of a bit string instance, again...

     [mospssapJ]

just making one transformation could change it from pw1 to pw2,

say using a 180 degree rotation first, then a repeated letter function

that drops a letter and expands others in the set (in this case string)...

     mospssapJ   --->   wosdssedr   --->   wwoossddseeddrr

notice the original password ~instance expanded from 9 characters

to 15 characters and has actually changed 'variables' of the password,

so that even if the original password is known, (and then: outdated),

without knowing the rules, it would not be easy to establish pw2 due

to potentially infinite variability, whatever the hidden rulesets may be

another example going further into this transformation via expansion

is to breakdown the sign-structures, again exampled at the bit string level.

     mospssapJ   --->   rn()s|oss|oJ

not much is occuring in this example, it expands from 9 to 12 characters.

though to make it more elaborate, lets rotate the letters 's' ninety degrees...

     moиpииapJ   --->   rn()VI|⁰VIVI|⁰J

this instance transforms the 9 character pw1 into a 15 character pw2 and

also introduces special characters that could be mapped to alphanumeric

structures. and this could go anywhere, to pw3...pwᴺ

for example, further mirroring, symmetry, rotation, duplication, substitution...

     rn()VI|⁰VIVI|⁰J   --->   L⁰|IVIV⁰|IV()nr

....horizontal mirroring of the string, and its further 180 rotation....

      L⁰|IVIV⁰|IV()nr   --->   ju()^I|ₒ^I^I|ₒ7

another pass could again recombine letters, such as substituting

a letter 'b' for '|ₒ', and turning each letter within the set 180 degrees,

if it can be mapped into another character structure...

      ju()^I|ₒ^I^I|ₒ7   --->   rn()VIpVIVIpL

so the idea here is that it is possible to move from pw1 to pwᴺ

and have a running password that is a transmutation of some

original or seed password that is itself autonomous, changing

and variable across a range of parameters; in this way, the

password could have involve aspects of superposition in its

bounded local interactions as its variability is encountered

     mospssapJ   --->   rn()VIpVIVIpL

in other words, pw1 and pw2 and pwᴺ could be a continual

process of transformation, and this variability could fill time,

and expand and contract and change characters, languages,

inter and intra-sign structures, and likewise could include

other variables as mentioned (temperature, other relativistic

variables- moon phase, number of sunspots, UV index, etc)

thus, pw1 could be 15 characters in one moment, 38 the next,

and potentially even strengthened if more than five attempts at

access occur, dropping gates and walls and further parameters,

or spawning a false basic password as entry into the labyrinth...

x⁽ xⁿ x⁾

From privarchy at gmail.com  Fri Nov 15 16:57:19 2013
From: privarchy at gmail.com (Privarchy Mee)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 00:57:19 +0000
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
Message-ID: 

Can any of you, most of whom I do not doubt are far more knowledgeable
about cryptography and how it's conceptualised within the legal sphere,
offer some insight regarding this?

https://twitter.com/CyMadD0x/status/401443518612512769

The claim is that Judge Loretta A. Preska, who sentenced Jeremy Hammond
today, said that for the three years (post-release) that he was to spend
under supervision, he will not be able to use encryption for communication
or storage purposes(!) which is practically a legal edict to go and build a
cabin by Walden Pond. How can this be considered anything but cruel and
unusual?
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From jacob at appelbaum.net  Fri Nov 15 22:12:57 2013
From: jacob at appelbaum.net (Jacob Appelbaum)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 06:12:57 +0000
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>
References: 
 <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>
Message-ID: <52870CE9.2020905@appelbaum.net>

> The only exception in the sentence is his use of encryption as required
> by employment. But it's hard enough for ex-felons to find a job after
> getting released as it is...
> 

I would hire him in a flat second and I would encourage others to do the
same.

Jeremy has a good heart and a great mind - I hope that after TEN YEARS
IN PRISON for breeching a WEBSITE and EMAIL SERVER that people will
consider his time served and help him to re-enter society.

This sentence is so disproportionate and unjust, it is sickening, it is
revolting and it is infuriating.

With contempt and disgust for this show at the US Court system today,
Jacob

From jya at pipeline.com  Sat Nov 16 05:04:29 2013
From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 08:04:29 -0500
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: 

Still, the USA's description of how its Cooperating Witness
(presumably Hector Sabu Monsegur) allegedly induced
Hammond to ply his fine mind and technical skills indicates
that ban on the use of encryption is the least hazard facing
hackers and confrontational comsec wizards:

http://cryptome.org/2013/11/hammond-060.pdf

Self-serving insiders of the comsec industry, black, white or gray,
continue to be the Achilles heel of comsec. Government use of
these trusted allies reminds that it is not only nations who fuck their
friends.

Now, this is not news, but also reminds that protestations of
injustice, outrage and anger, is all too often a conventional cover
for betrayal by cooperating witnesses.

Unfortunately, the same goes for eager participants in payback,
fault correction, workarounds, vengeance, product upgrades to
defeat the bastards. These exact means and methods were
allegedly used by Sabu to ensnare and imprison a batch of
confederates. An ancient practice effectively used on
Julian Assange: followers can be lethal.

Encryption offers squat protection from this kind of legal,
political and social engineering whose history is much
older and more effective than top coding, math, engineering,
ethics and brave challenges to authority. Usually, offer of
an irresistable plea deal, job contract, witness protection,
PR outpouring, turns a valiant outsider into a handsomely
rewarded insider. Mudge one of hundreds, perhaps thousands,
who got the warning message.

Then what to avoid the looming scythes the various Sabus (he is
surely not alone) have provided law enforcement to gradually
take down the opposition, not all at once but in the Snowden-Greenwald
manner, to slowly dribble prosecutions for maximum effect, promising
"much, much more to come?"

From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Sat Nov 16 01:50:55 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey (Phone))
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 09:50:55 +0000
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>
References: 
 <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>
Message-ID: <258cd154-a50d-4ceb-9633-5f5f79d0e23d@email.android.com>

So if I hire him and the job description is "test consumer grade encryption by using it in daily life"..?

Dan Staples  wrote:
>It's even more absurd considering the inevitable progress of technology
>over the next 10 years of Hammond's sentence. If we do our jobs right,
>everything will be using encryption by then. This could have the effect
>of simply barring him from using any sort of communicative digital
>technology...making many everyday tasks impossible.
>
>The only exception in the sentence is his use of encryption as required
>by employment. But it's hard enough for ex-felons to find a job after
>getting released as it is...
>
>On 11/15/2013 07:57 PM, Privarchy Mee wrote:
>> Can any of you, most of whom I do not doubt are far more
>knowledgeable
>> about cryptography and how it's conceptualised within the legal
>sphere,
>> offer some insight regarding this?
>> 
>> https://twitter.com/CyMadD0x/status/401443518612512769
>> 
>> The claim is that Judge Loretta A. Preska, who sentenced Jeremy
>Hammond
>> today, said that for the three years (post-release) that he was to
>spend
>> under supervision, he will not be able to use encryption for
>> communication or storage purposes(!) which is practically a legal
>edict
>> to go and build a cabin by Walden Pond. How can this be considered
>> anything but cruel and unusual?
>
>-- 
>http://disman.tl
>OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
>Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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From danstaples at disman.tl  Sat Nov 16 07:50:08 2013
From: danstaples at disman.tl (Dan Staples)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 10:50:08 -0500
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: <52870CE9.2020905@appelbaum.net>
References: 
 <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl> <52870CE9.2020905@appelbaum.net>
Message-ID: <52879430.2010708@disman.tl>

I hope you realize I was making a point about the challenges of
ex-felons in general, and not making a judgment on Hammond. He is
obviously brilliant and courageous, and many activists with the
ability to hire employees would be more than willing to help and
employ him when he gets out...

Witnessing his sentencing yesterday was physically sickening, and
definitely the worst abuse of our "justice" system I've ever seen. I
can only hope it inspires, rather than intimidates, other activists
and hackers to continue the type of work that he did.

Dan

On 11/16/2013 01:12 AM, Jacob Appelbaum wrote:
>> The only exception in the sentence is his use of encryption as
>> required by employment. But it's hard enough for ex-felons to
>> find a job after getting released as it is...
>> 
> 
> I would hire him in a flat second and I would encourage others to
> do the same.
> 
> Jeremy has a good heart and a great mind - I hope that after TEN
> YEARS IN PRISON for breeching a WEBSITE and EMAIL SERVER that
> people will consider his time served and help him to re-enter
> society.
> 
> This sentence is so disproportionate and unjust, it is sickening,
> it is revolting and it is infuriating.
> 
> With contempt and disgust for this show at the US Court system
> today, Jacob
> 

-- 
http://disman.tl
OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9

From jya at pipeline.com  Sat Nov 16 08:36:45 2013
From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 11:36:45 -0500
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: <52879430.2010708@disman.tl>
References: 
 <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl> <52870CE9.2020905@appelbaum.net>
 <52879430.2010708@disman.tl>
Message-ID: 

Still, recognize that hammering Hammond is meant to be
sickening, as with Manning, Anonymous and Lulzsec members.
In every case rats were coerced into incriminating others by
threats of doing to them what was done to Hammond. If nobody
is ever hammered the threats are not taken seriously.

At a HOPE panel on informants, several hackers disclosed
those pressures to rat, some succumbed and were let off,
Emmanuel Goldstein admitted it, some refused and were
jailed, Bernie-X, Kevin Mitnick. All agreed it is far worse to
go through than you think. Goldstein estimated 25% of hackers
are rats.

Barrett Brown is on the hot seat right now, being offering deals
to rat, as customary, with three (!) trials postponed to maintain
pressure. Shit, even his mom was used as a fed provocation to
misbehave then as a persuasion club as were Sabu's nephew
and niece.

Anybody with a high profile is targeted, so beware publicity
hounds crowing of derrying-do and urgings by high profilers
who may or may not be in the grips of the feds, and if not,
will soon be due to their publicity narcosis, and then used
as clubs or head to jail for obstruction and recidivism or
some other nut-squeezing -- even in jail they are offered
deals to rat and sentence reduced.

In or out jail the pressure to rat continues, as with Adrian
Lamo. Ex-cons never know if an overture is an LE sting or a
an honest request for advice, so they rat to be safe -- recall
they are obliged -- forever -- to report overtures, just like
ex-spies remain under the gun to rat for life. If you haven't
been there don't imagine you know what it's like.

Don't imagine this list and others like it, chats, OTRs, TOR,
are not being spied for easy targets.

At 10:50 AM 11/16/2013, you wrote:
>I hope you realize I was making a point about the challenges of
>ex-felons in general, and not making a judgment on Hammond. He is
>obviously brilliant and courageous, and many activists with the
>ability to hire employees would be more than willing to help and
>employ him when he gets out...
>
>Witnessing his sentencing yesterday was physically sickening, and
>definitely the worst abuse of our "justice" system I've ever seen. I
>can only hope it inspires, rather than intimidates, other activists
>and hackers to continue the type of work that he did.
>
>Dan
>
>On 11/16/2013 01:12 AM, Jacob Appelbaum wrote:
> >> The only exception in the sentence is his use of encryption as
> >> required by employment. But it's hard enough for ex-felons to
> >> find a job after getting released as it is...
> >>
> >
> > I would hire him in a flat second and I would encourage others to
> > do the same.
> >
> > Jeremy has a good heart and a great mind - I hope that after TEN
> > YEARS IN PRISON for breeching a WEBSITE and EMAIL SERVER that
> > people will consider his time served and help him to re-enter
> > society.
> >
> > This sentence is so disproportionate and unjust, it is sickening,
> > it is revolting and it is infuriating.
> >
> > With contempt and disgust for this show at the US Court system
> > today, Jacob
> >
>
>--
>http://disman.tl
>OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
>Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9

From mike at gogulski.com  Sat Nov 16 04:21:00 2013
From: mike at gogulski.com (Mike Gogulski)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 13:21:00 +0100
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>
References: 
 <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>
Message-ID: <5287632C.2090707@gogulski.com>

The absurdity deepens further when you consider that Hammond will no
doubt be using encryption at some level in the stack when he makes phone
calls via new VoIP-for-inmates services like the one recently
highlighted here:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/fcc-rules-that-prisoners-can-use-cheaper-voip-alternatives-to-call-home/

On 11/16/2013 02:40 AM, Dan Staples wrote:
> It's even more absurd considering the inevitable progress of technology
> over the next 10 years of Hammond's sentence. If we do our jobs right,
> everything will be using encryption by then. This could have the effect
> of simply barring him from using any sort of communicative digital
> technology...making many everyday tasks impossible.
>
> On 11/15/2013 07:57 PM, Privarchy Mee wrote:
>> The claim is that Judge Loretta A. Preska, who sentenced Jeremy Hammond
>> today, said that for the three years (post-release) that he was to spend
>> under supervision, he will not be able to use encryption for
>> communication or storage purposes(!) which is practically a legal edict
>> to go and build a cabin by Walden Pond. How can this be considered
>> anything but cruel and unusual?

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From coderman at gmail.com  Sat Nov 16 14:59:19 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 14:59:19 -0800
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: <258cd154-a50d-4ceb-9633-5f5f79d0e23d@email.android.com>
References: 
 <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl>
 <258cd154-a50d-4ceb-9633-5f5f79d0e23d@email.android.com>
Message-ID: 

On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 1:50 AM, Cathal Garvey (Phone)
 wrote:
> So if I hire him and the job description is "test consumer grade encryption
> by using it in daily life"..?

... and pay him with bitcoins

From coderman at gmail.com  Sat Nov 16 15:13:41 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 15:13:41 -0800
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
 <5286CD06.40600@disman.tl> <52870CE9.2020905@appelbaum.net>
 <52879430.2010708@disman.tl>

Message-ID: 

On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 8:36 AM, John Young  wrote:
> ...
> At a HOPE panel on informants, several hackers disclosed
> those pressures to rat, some succumbed and were let off,
> Emmanuel Goldstein admitted it, some refused and were
> jailed, Bernie-X, Kevin Mitnick. All agreed it is far worse to
> go through than you think. Goldstein estimated 25% of hackers
> are rats.

Jim Bell's exhortations to deny all pleas a hard sell considering that
one in four rolls over completely under pressure. :/

> Barrett Brown is on the hot seat right now, being offering deals
> to rat, as customary, with three (!) trials postponed to maintain
> pressure. Shit, even his mom was used as a fed provocation to
> misbehave then as a persuasion club as were Sabu's nephew
> and niece.

it would be interesting to see a survey of the carrots and sticks used
by federal prosecutors.

> Anybody with a high profile is targeted, so beware publicity
> hounds crowing of derrying-do and urgings by high profilers
> who may or may not be in the grips of the feds, and if not,
> will soon be due to their publicity narcosis, and then used
> as clubs or head to jail for obstruction and recidivism or
> some other nut-squeezing -- even in jail they are offered
> deals to rat and sentence reduced.

good thing JYA stays under the radar!

> In or out jail the pressure to rat continues, as with Adrian
> Lamo. Ex-cons never know if an overture is an LE sting or a
> an honest request for advice, so they rat to be safe -- recall
> they are obliged -- forever -- to report overtures, just like
> ex-spies remain under the gun to rat for life. If you haven't
> been there don't imagine you know what it's like.

what do you mean by "obliged -- forever -- to report overtures"?  i
would be very interested to know if there are clauses compelling
disclosure in these agreements for unrelated activities.  is this
"soft" pressure, or legally binding?

> Don't imagine this list and others like it, chats, OTRs, TOR,
> are not being spied for easy targets.

this opportunistic spying even has a code name: EPICFAIL

From coderman at gmail.com  Sat Nov 16 15:21:40 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 15:21:40 -0800
Subject: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA
 Actions"
Message-ID: 

Anyone have a transcript for this piece?

---

"Writers Especially Concerned About NSA Actions"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885

While polls show many Americans are uneasy with government actions
revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one profession in particular
seems to be alarmed. A new survey of professional writers finds them
much more concerned than the general public. An organization of
writers says that a large majority of its members have "never been as
worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are
today."

From jya at pipeline.com  Sat Nov 16 15:59:08 2013
From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 18:59:08 -0500
Subject: [Cryptography][Law] Jeremy Hammond Banned from using Cryptography
Message-ID: 

That should have been Bernie-S, not -X. And Mitnick now runs
a rather profitable security service and lecture series.

About Jim Bell (he can speak for himself but I know best
how to smell and tell a rat):

The IRS secret agent leading Jim's chase, Agent Gordon, lurked
on cypherpunks for a long time, gathering names and addresses
to subpoena for Jim's grand jury probe and (first) trial. Several of us
were subpoenad along with cpunks records from some (John Gilmore
one of those). Some, like me, were summoned both for the grand jury
and the trial held in Tacoma, WA. (Sidebar: youngster Declan
McCullagh covered that and I urged him to report seditiously
enough to be sent to jail to build his rep -- he politely refused
to cellmate Jim.)

Short story (full account in the archive) is that not many supported
Jim all the way when the shit came down, indeed, brazenly ridiculed
his adventure, presumably to cover their ass from Agent Gordon
and co-lurkers always on duty hereabouts.

Who secretly ratted Jim at the grand jury remains unknown but their
behavior and sweat odor has been profiled by god and they will not
be given authentic bitcoins, only fakes with their undercover UID
embedded like Lamo.

At 06:13 PM 11/16/2013, you wrote:
>On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 8:36 AM, John Young  wrote:
> > ...
> > At a HOPE panel on informants, several hackers disclosed
> > those pressures to rat, some succumbed and were let off,
> > Emmanuel Goldstein admitted it, some refused and were
> > jailed, Bernie-X, Kevin Mitnick. All agreed it is far worse to
> > go through than you think. Goldstein estimated 25% of hackers
> > are rats.
>
>Jim Bell's exhortations to deny all pleas a hard sell considering that
>one in four rolls over completely under pressure. :/
>
>
>
> > Barrett Brown is on the hot seat right now, being offering deals
> > to rat, as customary, with three (!) trials postponed to maintain
> > pressure. Shit, even his mom was used as a fed provocation to
> > misbehave then as a persuasion club as were Sabu's nephew
> > and niece.
>
>it would be interesting to see a survey of the carrots and sticks used
>by federal prosecutors.
>
>
>
> > Anybody with a high profile is targeted, so beware publicity
> > hounds crowing of derrying-do and urgings by high profilers
> > who may or may not be in the grips of the feds, and if not,
> > will soon be due to their publicity narcosis, and then used
> > as clubs or head to jail for obstruction and recidivism or
> > some other nut-squeezing -- even in jail they are offered
> > deals to rat and sentence reduced.
>
>good thing JYA stays under the radar!

Sorry to say Radar mag did a smear of us.

> > In or out jail the pressure to rat continues, as with Adrian
> > Lamo. Ex-cons never know if an overture is an LE sting or a
> > an honest request for advice, so they rat to be safe -- recall
> > they are obliged -- forever -- to report overtures, just like
> > ex-spies remain under the gun to rat for life. If you haven't
> > been there don't imagine you know what it's like.
>
>what do you mean by "obliged -- forever -- to report overtures"?  i
>would be very interested to know if there are clauses compelling
>disclosure in these agreements for unrelated activities.  is this
>"soft" pressure, or legally binding?

Notice upon release from prison that ex-cons are expected to
be on call. Panoptic assured. Moreso for ex-spies.

> > Don't imagine this list and others like it, chats, OTRs, TOR,
> > are not being spied for easy targets.
>
>this opportunistic spying even has a code name: EPICFAIL

Also Open Source.

From rysiek at hackerspace.pl  Sat Nov 16 11:00:08 2013
From: rysiek at hackerspace.pl (rysiek)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 20:00:08 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
Message-ID: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap>

OHAI,

So, this project has been noted here on several occasions, but I still lack 
some serious opinions. Here's a chance to voice them. What do you think of 
RetroShare?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroshare
http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/

inb4 "Java suxxorz" -- yes, I tend to hold that view myself; hoever, if 
RetroShare is a workable solution, we can simply add C++/Python/Whatever 
implementations later, right?

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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From hannes at stressinduktion.org  Sat Nov 16 11:47:21 2013
From: hannes at stressinduktion.org (Hannes Frederic Sowa)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 20:47:21 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap>
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap>
Message-ID: <20131116194721.GC14808@order.stressinduktion.org>

On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 08:00:08PM +0100, rysiek wrote:
> inb4 "Java suxxorz" -- yes, I tend to hold that view myself; hoever, if 
> RetroShare is a workable solution, we can simply add C++/Python/Whatever 
> implementations later, right?

Of course it is possible to add memory/type unsafe implementations later.
Actually, RetroShare is developed in C++/QT.

From rysiek at hackerspace.pl  Sat Nov 16 12:43:06 2013
From: rysiek at hackerspace.pl (rysiek)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 21:43:06 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: <20131116194721.GC14808@order.stressinduktion.org>
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap>
 <20131116194721.GC14808@order.stressinduktion.org>
Message-ID: <1622691.TXyKPadIDx@lap>

Dnia sobota, 16 listopada 2013 20:47:21 Hannes Frederic Sowa pisze:
> On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 08:00:08PM +0100, rysiek wrote:
> > inb4 "Java suxxorz" -- yes, I tend to hold that view myself; hoever, if
> > RetroShare is a workable solution, we can simply add C++/Python/Whatever
> > implementations later, right?
> 
> Of course it is possible to add memory/type unsafe implementations later.

What you did is there and I see it.

> Actually, RetroShare is developed in C++/QT.

Oh, I got Retroshare mixed up with Sneer, then. That's great.

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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From l at odewijk.nl  Sat Nov 16 13:19:03 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 22:19:03 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap>
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap>
Message-ID: 

I am presently using it. I have connected with a significant portion of the
network. I find it is largely inert.

The software is not without flaws. It's design is monolithic, causing any
error to crash the entire system. Plugins increase the fatal error surface,
attack surface and functionality.

The greatest problem with plugins is that I'm never sure how they deal with
my anonymity.

I think Retroshare could well be replaced by something alike Tor, but not
Tor, then to have some quantity of programs connect to it to do interesting
things. That makes it more confusing that it exists, because Tor does
already too.

So, why use Retroshare instead of a Tor hidden service with standard chat
relay? Because Tor is a target and RetroShare is not. And because
Retroshare actually does a lot more than relay chat.

I do not have a solid recommendation. I use it for curiosity reasons now.
Although occasionally stimulating in it's novelty I find it unfit
technically and practically for critical work. It still seems to be the
best tool for the job, not unlike the rock-and-stick tools were the best
for cutting lumber in days long past.

2013/11/16 rysiek 
>
> inb4 "Java suxxorz" -- yes, I tend to hold that view myself; hoever, if
> RetroShare is a workable solution, we can simply add C++/Python/Whatever
> implementations later, right?
>

I think the implementation is messy. It might be less then normally
convenient to add other implementations.
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From rysiek at hackerspace.pl  Sat Nov 16 13:29:03 2013
From: rysiek at hackerspace.pl (rysiek)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 22:29:03 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: 
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap>

Message-ID: <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>

Dnia sobota, 16 listopada 2013 22:19:03 Lodewijk andré de la porte pisze:
> I am presently using it. I have connected with a significant portion of the
> network. I find it is largely inert.
> 
> (...)
> 
> I do not have a solid recommendation. I use it for curiosity reasons now.
> Although occasionally stimulating in it's novelty I find it unfit
> technically and practically for critical work. It still seems to be the
> best tool for the job, not unlike the rock-and-stick tools were the best
> for cutting lumber in days long past.

Thank you for your comments. These are valuable, and they seem to confirm my 
(short) experience with it.

> 2013/11/16 rysiek 
> 
> > inb4 "Java suxxorz" -- yes, I tend to hold that view myself; hoever, if
> > RetroShare is a workable solution, we can simply add C++/Python/Whatever
> > implementations later, right?
> 
> I think the implementation is messy. It might be less then normally
> convenient to add other implementations.

I am more interested in the protocol. People are already using RetroShare, 
right? It's FLOSS, it has some sort of a protocol underneath. So it is 
possible to create new implementations that do not make errors of the original 
one.

*IF* (and that's a pretty big "if") the protocol is solid, of which I have no 
way to ascertain.

So I guess this is my question: does RetroShare's protocol seem solid and 
sensible? Should we invest time and effort into it?

As it is the first DHT-based communication and filesharing application/system 
based on strong encryption that is actually usable -- at least from what I 
have seen.

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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From l at odewijk.nl  Sat Nov 16 14:19:58 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 23:19:58 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap>

 <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/16 rysiek 

> So I guess this is my question: does RetroShare's protocol seem solid and
> sensible? Should we invest time and effort into it?
>

It's basic concepts are pretty well considered. It's quite like Tor only
the first nodes are "trusted nodes" and not just any random one. That said
I think the whole RetroShare thingy is shot to hell regarding traffic
analysis. That's hard for everyone except the Top Secret level people.

Far as I know there's no deep-communication tactics except
store-and-forward for forums. That's some weakness if you ask me. Finding a
file based on a hash requires broadcasting the request for the hash, which
will likely flood through (part of) the network. Tracing back a flood is
pretty easy with a few nodes.

Invest in it? Not a bad thing to invest in. But it's not that special on
the crypto/security level AFAIK. I think the whole P2P thing is a bigger
deal than the crypto part of it.
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From grarpamp at gmail.com  Sat Nov 16 22:44:48 2013
From: grarpamp at gmail.com (grarpamp)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 01:44:48 -0500
Subject: [tor-talk] [liberationtech] BitMail.sf.net v 0.6 - Secure
 Encrypting Email Client
In-Reply-To: <5288100A.3070400@riseup.net>
References: 

 <52860a15.43e3440a.4abd.ffffe2e3@mx.google.com>
 <5288100A.3070400@riseup.net>
Message-ID: 

> I don't think that's possible at the moment. There are no
> deterministically built operating systems yet.

This is rather sad. I think FreeBSD has
a project somewhere trying to move that way.
Hopefully all of the unix-likes are at least aware of
the concept, if not having an actual project for it.
Also, none of the BSD's have any built-in integrity
in their repositories, they just insist their infrastructure
and committers are infallible among other escuses.
(Excepting DragonFly which uses git, don't know if they
sign it though. Monotone seems better at that sort of
embedded pki thing.).

From m4dh4tt3r at gmail.com  Sun Nov 17 09:08:59 2013
From: m4dh4tt3r at gmail.com (Christopher Nielsen)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 09:08:59 -0800
Subject: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA
 Actions"
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: 

I think what you're looking for is here.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885

On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 3:21 PM, coderman  wrote:
> Anyone have a transcript for this piece?
>
> ---
>
> "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA Actions"
> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885
>
> While polls show many Americans are uneasy with government actions
> revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one profession in particular
> seems to be alarmed. A new survey of professional writers finds them
> much more concerned than the general public. An organization of
> writers says that a large majority of its members have "never been as
> worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are
> today."

-- 
Christopher Nielsen
"They who can give up essential liberty for temporary safety, deserve
neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
blood of patriots & tyrants." --Thomas Jefferson

From jya at pipeline.com  Sun Nov 17 09:53:01 2013
From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 12:53:01 -0500
Subject: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially Concerned
 About NSA Actions"
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: 

That herd behavior is disappointing but customary cowardice.

Worse happened after 9/11. Many once valiant FOI fighters cleansed
their websites and heralded the need to obey the war-mongerers, and
urgently cautioned others as if the propaganda was believable.

No doubt, this self-censorship is market-driven to please
funders, advertizers and publishers who dare not displease their
dinner companions at Aspen, Davos, Bohemian Grove, and for
sure the DC centroid of privileged access to valuable information,
much of it spy boosting leakage of the Snowden type.

The heavy censorship of the Snowden documents by the hoarders
and their extremely slow pace of release while rhetorizing and
hyping the minimalist product fits this spy-favorite marketing
schemata.

NPR is not what it used to appear to be. It has booted and censored
a slew of its reporters, editors and contributors. Not alone, the
journalism industry is panicked at loss of customers and is rushing
to cleanse its harem. Poor discards are deperately seeking Omidyar
and Soros invitation to their opium dens as if from frying pan into
the fire.

At 12:08 PM 11/17/2013, you wrote:
>I think what you're looking for is here.
>
>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885
>
>On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 3:21 PM, coderman  wrote:
> > Anyone have a transcript for this piece?
> >
> > ---
> >
> > "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA Actions"
> > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885
> >
> > While polls show many Americans are uneasy with government actions
> > revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one profession in particular
> > seems to be alarmed. A new survey of professional writers finds them
> > much more concerned than the general public. An organization of
> > writers says that a large majority of its members have "never been as
> > worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are
> > today."
>
>
>
>--
>Christopher Nielsen
>"They who can give up essential liberty for temporary safety, deserve
>neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
>"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
>blood of patriots & tyrants." --Thomas Jefferson

From rysiek at hackerspace.pl  Sun Nov 17 07:25:04 2013
From: rysiek at hackerspace.pl (rysiek)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 16:25:04 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: 
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap> <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>

Message-ID: <1892324.eEEYb6oia5@lap>

Dnia sobota, 16 listopada 2013 23:19:58 Lodewijk andré de la porte pisze:
> 2013/11/16 rysiek 
> 
> > So I guess this is my question: does RetroShare's protocol seem solid and
> > sensible? Should we invest time and effort into it?
> 
> It's basic concepts are pretty well considered. It's quite like Tor only
> the first nodes are "trusted nodes" and not just any random one. That said
> I think the whole RetroShare thingy is shot to hell regarding traffic
> analysis. That's hard for everyone except the Top Secret level people.
> 
> Far as I know there's no deep-communication tactics except
> store-and-forward for forums. That's some weakness if you ask me. Finding a
> file based on a hash requires broadcasting the request for the hash, which
> will likely flood through (part of) the network. Tracing back a flood is
> pretty easy with a few nodes.
> 
> Invest in it? Not a bad thing to invest in. But it's not that special on
> the crypto/security level AFAIK. I think the whole P2P thing is a bigger
> deal than the crypto part of it.

Or, more precisely, how it *combines* crypto and P2P. Plus usability: while 
it's not a staple of it, it is definitely easier to set-up and use than 
XMPP+OTR over TOR, while the effect is more or less the same -- you get an 
encrypted, trusted comms channel.

Wonder however if RetroShare gives you plausible deniability?

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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From coderman at gmail.com  Sun Nov 17 18:57:48 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 18:57:48 -0800
Subject: Denial of Disservice Attack [was: Jeremy Hammond Banned from using
 Cryptography]
Message-ID: 

On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 11:31 AM, Jim Bell  wrote:
> ...
>>Jim Bell's exhortations to deny all pleas a hard sell considering that
>>one in four rolls over completely under pressure. :/
>
> For 70,000 Federal criminal defendants per year, there are only about 3,500
> Federal criminal trials per year.  In other words, ultimately 95% 'rolls
> over'.  (Note:  That doesn't mean that they necessarily 'rat':  Many
> defendants have no co-defendants, for example.  And, a defendant might
> accept a plea, without agreement to testify against someone else.)  With my
> idea of "Denial of Disservice Attack" (Offer of circa $5,000 to demand a
> jury trial), I'm trying to avoid that situation.

agreed; i should have said "turned rat fuck" instead of "rolled over
completely".

accepting a plea more apropos "rolling over"...

on a related note, how deep can the court queue grow before it becomes
untenable and denies prosecutions?   the recent civil court delays
appear to be trivial despite cries of dire circumstance...[0]

0.  "For Federal Courts, Shutdown Caused Broad Disruptions"
[ED: for generous interpretation of "broad disruption"]
   http://news.uscourts.gov/federal-courts-shutdown-caused-broad-disruptions
[ED2: more comedy, e.g. 'after 17 days delay, “the general impression
was that federal courts were on their last breath,”' - LULZ]

From coderman at gmail.com  Sun Nov 17 19:02:16 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 19:02:16 -0800
Subject: Omidyar influence in new Greenwald venture [was: SRF: cryptic]
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: 

see http://cryptome.org/2013/11/omidyar-extraordinary.pdf

the Omidyar buyout of Greenwald and Poitras apparently to shield the
willful, disgraceful corporate role in pervasive privacy destruction
by faux beating of the state proper, as embodied by the NSA, CIA, and
their tax payer funded patsies...

effective disclosure dies.

From coderman at gmail.com  Sun Nov 17 19:14:35 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 19:14:35 -0800
Subject: Fwd: That wonderful 1980-ies hippie vibe...
Message-ID: 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Poul-Henning Kamp 
Date: Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 2:53 PM
Subject: That wonderful 1980-ies hippie vibe...
To: HTTP Working Group 

It's bedtime here in Denmark, but before I go to bed, I want to
thank for the wonderful 1980'ies hippie-vibe of the last couple of
days, it's been a wonderful nostalgic experience.

I don't know how many of you remember "atomic weapon free zones" ?

Maybe if you are younger, you might have seen a faded "Atomic Weapon
free Zone" sign somewhere ?

What happened was that well-meaning city councils made lofty
proclamations and declared there city would never allow atomic
weapons inside city limits etc.

It was of course an empty gesture, it's not like the military cared
what the Burgermeister of some dutch or german town signed, if they
needed to drive their nukes through, they would damn well drive
their nukes through the town-square.

In some cases it was down-right laughably hypocritical.

Does Berkeley still have their sign up ?  Berkeley Uni made a fortune
running LLNL, which designed atomic bombs, but they were appearantly
not allowed to bring the work home with them, or something.

Anyway...

Ending the cold war, one nuclear-weapon free city after the other,
was as effective as slightly more encryption in HTTP/2.0 will
be at ending USAs "War Against Privacy".

I do understand you are upset about it, so am I, and I do recognize
that when you have only a watchmakers screwdriver as tool, you use
the only tool you have.

But rolling back the US police-state, a firmly nailed down
military-industrial complex with a budget measured in billions, and
what looks like almost unanimous political support of USgov, is not
going to happen because we tighten a screw somewhere in a internet
protocol.

Sorry.

If you want to do something about the polic-state, by all means get
involved in politics:  Expose the lies, support the whistleblowers,
vote the bums out, run for office.

But in this WG, please leave your politics at the door and
concentrate on the objective in our charter: Making a better
performing HTTP protocol.

G'night...

--
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

From coderman at gmail.com  Sun Nov 17 20:07:22 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 20:07:22 -0800
Subject: passwords! (p5) / ngrams and passphrases
Message-ID: 

On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 6:09 PM, brian carroll
 wrote:
> ... if a password service used this principle,... 3-4 sets instead,
>    themselves having special rules...
>
>    [set1|set2|set3|set4]
>
>    in this way, a 'rolling password' could be developed ...

this feels similar to various guided / ordered permutations strategies
that use a corpus of ngrams or words for attacking longer sequences,
like passphrases. [with or without decorating permutations like
appended numerical sequences and other common substitutions and
sequences]

the effectiveness of these in practice appears strongly bound to your
operational security.  e.g. past examples of mining a user's interests
to guide successful pass word and pass phrase cracking attempts.

i keep waiting for someone to write it, alas:
 'No results found for "the art of tactical password cracking"'

;)

From lists at silent1.net  Sun Nov 17 14:17:54 2013
From: lists at silent1.net (Silent1)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 22:17:54 -0000
Subject: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA
 Actions"
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <005101cee3e2$dd2a3d10$977eb730$@net>

This transcript?

ARUN RATH, HOST: 

It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR West. I'm Arun Rath.

Revelations about the massive size and extent of the NSA surveillance
practices have reignited the debate over how to balance security needs with
privacy rights. Some writers feel those privacy concerns more acutely. A new
report from the PEN American Center, a membership organization of writers,
finds that a large majority of its members say they have, quote, "never been
as worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are today."
Some of those respondents say it's changing the way they work.

Joining me now is Suzanne Nossel. She's the executive director of the PEN
American Center. Suzanne, welcome.

SUZANNE NOSSEL: Thank you for having me.

RATH: So, first, let's talk about the survey a little bit. What were you
looking to find out?

NOSSEL: Well, when the Snowden revelations first broke over the summer, we
saw some Pew polls that showed that many Americans were essentially
shrugging their shoulders, not too concerned. And so we wondered whether
writers felt the same way or whether they rely on free expression for their
craft, their livelihood, we might get a different response.

And what we saw and got back is that they are far more alarmed about these
revelations than the general public. Sixty-six percent of writers who
responded to our survey said that they disapproved of the government's
collection of telephone and Internet data as part of antiterrorism efforts
compared to just 44 percent of the general public.

RATH: So writers, or at least this group of PEN writers, they're more
bothered by the surveillance. But in terms of doing their work, are they
frightened?

NOSSEL: Some of them are. We asked people to report on the degree to which
they've actually modified their behavior in response to these revelations,
and significant proportions said that they are. About 28 percent said that
they had curtailed or avoided social media activities. Twenty-four percent
said that they're avoiding certain subjects in telephone or email
conversations. And 16 percent said that they'd actually steered away from
tackling particular topics in their writing because of concern of government
surveillance.

RATH: Now, I know myself, being brown and having a funny name, when I've
covered national security stories, I've wondered am I drawing attention to
myself in a way that might not be great. But I just go ahead and do it. Are
you saying that people are having that same thought and just thinking, I'm
not going to research this at all?

NOSSEL: Some are. In some cases, it was coverage of the military, coverage
of national security issues, communications with people overseas,
particularly in certain countries, covering mass incarceration, in one case
covering abortion issues. So I think it is distressing to see that
significant proportions of writers are thinking about this, it's weighing on
them. They're actually modifying their behavior.

Maybe they need to, maybe they don't. But the fact that they're doing it
means that we're not hearing, reading, learning of some of the ideas and
stories that they might otherwise be writing.

RATH: There was another reaction - you may have seen it. This is from David
Ulin, the book critic for the L.A. Times who - his reaction was basically,
what's wrong with the writers? Why are they cowing so quickly? Why are they
being so fast to self-censor?

NOSSEL: Well, some writers did say, absolutely not. They wrote back to us
and said, you know, there's no way that I would refrain from taking on a
topic, and I'm not afraid of this. But at the same time, when you look at
what's happened in certain quarters of our community - I mean, I'll give the
example of investigative journalists and people who've been on the receiving
end of some of the leaks who the government, the Obama administration has
gone after, has in some cases prosecuted. And so it's hard to say that
everybody who's worried is worried needlessly.

RATH: Suzanne Nossel is executive director of the PEN American Center.
Suzanne, thank you.

NOSSEL: Thanks very much.

-----Original Message-----
From: cypherpunks [mailto:cypherpunks-bounces at cpunks.org] On Behalf Of
coderman
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2013 11:22 PM
To: cpunks
Subject: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA
Actions"

Anyone have a transcript for this piece?

---

"Writers Especially Concerned About NSA Actions"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885

While polls show many Americans are uneasy with government actions
revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one profession in particular
seems to be alarmed. A new survey of professional writers finds them
much more concerned than the general public. An organization of
writers says that a large majority of its members have "never been as
worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are
today."

From lists at silent1.net  Sun Nov 17 14:18:47 2013
From: lists at silent1.net (Silent1)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 22:18:47 -0000
Subject: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA
 Actions"
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <005201cee3e2$fce3e1b0$f6aba510$@net>

Ah shit, 36 hours behind... that'll teach me

-----Original Message-----
From: cypherpunks [mailto:cypherpunks-bounces at cpunks.org] On Behalf Of
coderman
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2013 11:22 PM
To: cpunks
Subject: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA
Actions"

Anyone have a transcript for this piece?

---

"Writers Especially Concerned About NSA Actions"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885

While polls show many Americans are uneasy with government actions
revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one profession in particular
seems to be alarmed. A new survey of professional writers finds them
much more concerned than the general public. An organization of
writers says that a large majority of its members have "never been as
worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are
today."

From lists at silent1.net  Sun Nov 17 14:28:57 2013
From: lists at silent1.net (Silent1)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 22:28:57 -0000
Subject: [cryptome] Re: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially
 Concerned About NSA Actions"
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: <005301cee3e4$684d2d20$38e78760$@net>

" The heavy censorship of the Snowden documents by the hoarders
and their extremely slow pace of release while rhetorizing and
hyping the minimalist product fits this spy-favorite marketing
schemata."

I noticed this with wikileaks, they have torrented all of the files
available on their website and claim it comes to 20,000, I was under the
impression that Mr/Miss Manning gave him 500,000 documents, so not including
the stuff before that there should be in excess of 600,000 documents.
Though I remember the days he was stalking round TOR trying to find people
to help him and got the distinct impression then that he was like the sort
of person who wants to be in power, not in it for whatever cause he
proclaims but for the notoriety.

-----Original Message-----
From: cryptome-bounce at freelists.org [mailto:cryptome-bounce at freelists.org]
On Behalf Of John Young
Sent: Sunday, November 17, 2013 5:53 PM
To: cypherpunks at cpunks.org; cryptome at freelists.org
Subject: [cryptome] Re: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially
Concerned About NSA Actions"

That herd behavior is disappointing but customary cowardice.

Worse happened after 9/11. Many once valiant FOI fighters cleansed
their websites and heralded the need to obey the war-mongerers, and
urgently cautioned others as if the propaganda was believable.

No doubt, this self-censorship is market-driven to please
funders, advertizers and publishers who dare not displease their
dinner companions at Aspen, Davos, Bohemian Grove, and for
sure the DC centroid of privileged access to valuable information,
much of it spy boosting leakage of the Snowden type.

The heavy censorship of the Snowden documents by the hoarders
and their extremely slow pace of release while rhetorizing and
hyping the minimalist product fits this spy-favorite marketing
schemata.

NPR is not what it used to appear to be. It has booted and censored
a slew of its reporters, editors and contributors. Not alone, the
journalism industry is panicked at loss of customers and is rushing
to cleanse its harem. Poor discards are deperately seeking Omidyar
and Soros invitation to their opium dens as if from frying pan into
the fire.

At 12:08 PM 11/17/2013, you wrote:
>I think what you're looking for is here.
>
>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885
>
>On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 3:21 PM, coderman  wrote:
> > Anyone have a transcript for this piece?
> >
> > ---
> >
> > "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA Actions"
> > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885
> >
> > While polls show many Americans are uneasy with government actions
> > revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one profession in particular
> > seems to be alarmed. A new survey of professional writers finds them
> > much more concerned than the general public. An organization of
> > writers says that a large majority of its members have "never been as
> > worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are
> > today."
>
>
>
>--
>Christopher Nielsen
>"They who can give up essential liberty for temporary safety, deserve
>neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
>"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
>blood of patriots & tyrants." --Thomas Jefferson

From grarpamp at gmail.com  Sun Nov 17 19:51:11 2013
From: grarpamp at gmail.com (grarpamp)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 22:51:11 -0500
Subject: Omidyar influence in new Greenwald venture [was: SRF: cryptic]
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: 

On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 10:02 PM, coderman  wrote:
> the Omidyar buyout of Greenwald and Poitras apparently to shield the
> willful, disgraceful corporate role in pervasive privacy destruction
>
> effective disclosure dies.

But with the open disclosure ideas seeded by WikiLeaks, Manning,
Snowden, and all that have come before... maybe there is
life to be found in this future, through this seemingly sickly new
competitive, fostering, means of control. Does one really believe
that cooperation trumps competition in this regard? It is always
about the edge to be gained, is it not? And in those edges lie the
morsels of truth, to be pieced together by the careful listener as
always.

The whole truth will come out in time, it is the way of things,
or so we thought... Now the only real problem is, the timescale
of the open truth is rapidly, and lately, exceeding the human
lifespan. To tell one's story, openly, before the deathbed is now
the critical and true paramount call to action, the one remaining
check. Lest your secrets be managed for you against the needs
of humanity. You are the future of humanity, what will you do?

From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Sun Nov 17 15:44:14 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey)
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 23:44:14 +0000
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: <1892324.eEEYb6oia5@lap>
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap> <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>

 <1892324.eEEYb6oia5@lap>
Message-ID: <20131117234414.0e52405e@Neptune>

Retroshare isn't "like tor", it's "the opposite of tor".

Tor establishes a network of mutual distrust (kinda; you still trust
some aspects of the network such as the directory servers).

Retroshare establishes a network of mutual trust, although you can
withhold certain details such as whether you or merely a friend known
to you is sharing the files you make available (although as mentioned
by another this is likely to be traceable with enough network data).

For high-security work, something like i2p or Tor is probably better.
For an alternative to daily, casual internet traffic, Retroshare's
*idea* is probably superior; by relying on existing relationships of
trust, you can probably get better performance, and data that's
relevant to your interests is likely to be nearby in the network
because of social networking effects.

However, the flipside is without existing relationships of trust,
you're dead in the water; I tried Retroshare for a while but had no
friends on it, so had no access to the "core network" through any
trusted links.

Also, I get mixed signals about the developer attitude to some security
aspects of the P2P side of things. For example, they use SHA1 for the
distributed hash table, whereas in my opinion one should never use an
even partially broken hash for a *hash table*; you never know what
exploits are known privately that further break the hash, and should
generally assume it's fully broken if your threat model includes
adversaries like the NSA. If you're willing to compromise on the
quality of the hash that underlies the entire P2P end of the system,
I'm wary about your attitude to security overall.

This wasn't such a big deal 'til I saw some anons advocating Retroshare
as a "usable crypto" solution. Well, it is; if your adversary is a
talent-starved rent-seeking quango like the RIAA. If your adversary is
the world's biggest circle-jerk of military cryptographers, I wouldn't
go there, personally.

Maybe I'm paranoid about SHA1? I'm eager for other opinions here.
Crypto is an area where the Dunning Kruger only gets worse the deeper
you go.

On Sun, 17 Nov 2013 16:25:04 +0100
rysiek  wrote:

> Dnia sobota, 16 listopada 2013 23:19:58 Lodewijk andré de la porte
> pisze:
> > 2013/11/16 rysiek 
> > 
> > > So I guess this is my question: does RetroShare's protocol seem
> > > solid and sensible? Should we invest time and effort into it?
> > 
> > It's basic concepts are pretty well considered. It's quite like Tor
> > only the first nodes are "trusted nodes" and not just any random
> > one. That said I think the whole RetroShare thingy is shot to hell
> > regarding traffic analysis. That's hard for everyone except the Top
> > Secret level people.
> > 
> > Far as I know there's no deep-communication tactics except
> > store-and-forward for forums. That's some weakness if you ask me.
> > Finding a file based on a hash requires broadcasting the request
> > for the hash, which will likely flood through (part of) the
> > network. Tracing back a flood is pretty easy with a few nodes.
> > 
> > Invest in it? Not a bad thing to invest in. But it's not that
> > special on the crypto/security level AFAIK. I think the whole P2P
> > thing is a bigger deal than the crypto part of it.
> 
> Or, more precisely, how it *combines* crypto and P2P. Plus usability:
> while it's not a staple of it, it is definitely easier to set-up and
> use than XMPP+OTR over TOR, while the effect is more or less the same
> -- you get an encrypted, trusted comms channel.
> 
> Wonder however if RetroShare gives you plausible deniability?
> 

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From juan.g71 at gmail.com  Sun Nov 17 22:07:53 2013
From: juan.g71 at gmail.com (Juan Garofalo)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 03:07:53 -0300
Subject: [cryptome] Re: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially
 Concerned About NSA Actions"
In-Reply-To: <005301cee3e4$684d2d20$38e78760$@net>
References: 

 <005301cee3e4$684d2d20$38e78760$@net>
Message-ID: 

--On Sunday, November 17, 2013 10:28 PM +0000 Silent1 
wrote:

> " The heavy censorship of the Snowden documents by the hoarders
> and their extremely slow pace of release while rhetorizing and
> hyping the minimalist product fits this spy-favorite marketing
> schemata."
> 
> I noticed this with wikileaks, they have torrented all of the files
> available on their website and claim it comes to 20,000, I was under the
> impression that Mr/Miss Manning gave him 500,000 documents, so not
> including the stuff before that there should be in excess of 600,000
> documents. Though I remember the days he was stalking round TOR trying to
> find people to help him and got the distinct impression then that he was
> like the sort of person who wants to be in power, not in it for whatever
> cause he proclaims but for the notoriety.

	Are you talking about Assange? If yes, looks as if Assange is in jail
while the Tor guys are still being paid by the pentagon to peddle their
snake oil and furhter the interest of the US military and other american
nazis. 

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cryptome-bounce at freelists.org [mailto:cryptome-bounce at freelists.org]
> On Behalf Of John Young
> Sent: Sunday, November 17, 2013 5:53 PM
> To: cypherpunks at cpunks.org; cryptome at freelists.org
> Subject: [cryptome] Re: Request for transcript: "Writers Especially
> Concerned About NSA Actions"
> 
> That herd behavior is disappointing but customary cowardice.
> 
> Worse happened after 9/11. Many once valiant FOI fighters cleansed
> their websites and heralded the need to obey the war-mongerers, and
> urgently cautioned others as if the propaganda was believable.
> 
> No doubt, this self-censorship is market-driven to please
> funders, advertizers and publishers who dare not displease their
> dinner companions at Aspen, Davos, Bohemian Grove, and for
> sure the DC centroid of privileged access to valuable information,
> much of it spy boosting leakage of the Snowden type.
> 
> The heavy censorship of the Snowden documents by the hoarders
> and their extremely slow pace of release while rhetorizing and
> hyping the minimalist product fits this spy-favorite marketing
> schemata.
> 
> NPR is not what it used to appear to be. It has booted and censored
> a slew of its reporters, editors and contributors. Not alone, the
> journalism industry is panicked at loss of customers and is rushing
> to cleanse its harem. Poor discards are deperately seeking Omidyar
> and Soros invitation to their opium dens as if from frying pan into
> the fire.
> 
> At 12:08 PM 11/17/2013, you wrote:
>> I think what you're looking for is here.
>> 
>> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885
>> 
>> On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 3:21 PM, coderman  wrote:
>> > Anyone have a transcript for this piece?
>> > 
>> > ---
>> > 
>> > "Writers Especially Concerned About NSA Actions"
>> > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245660885
>> > 
>> > While polls show many Americans are uneasy with government actions
>> > revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one profession in particular
>> > seems to be alarmed. A new survey of professional writers finds them
>> > much more concerned than the general public. An organization of
>> > writers says that a large majority of its members have "never been as
>> > worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are
>> > today."
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Christopher Nielsen
>> "They who can give up essential liberty for temporary safety, deserve
>> neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
>> "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
>> blood of patriots & tyrants." --Thomas Jefferson
> 
> 
> 
>  

From rysiek at hackerspace.pl  Sun Nov 17 23:29:22 2013
From: rysiek at hackerspace.pl (rysiek)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 08:29:22 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: <20131117234414.0e52405e@Neptune>
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap> <1892324.eEEYb6oia5@lap>
 <20131117234414.0e52405e@Neptune>
Message-ID: <2739915.3yKduiun6B@lap>

Hi there,

Dnia niedziela, 17 listopada 2013 23:44:14 Cathal Garvey pisze:
> Retroshare isn't "like tor", it's "the opposite of tor".
> 
> Tor establishes a network of mutual distrust (kinda; you still trust
> some aspects of the network such as the directory servers).
> 
> Retroshare establishes a network of mutual trust, although you can
> withhold certain details such as whether you or merely a friend known
> to you is sharing the files you make available (although as mentioned
> by another this is likely to be traceable with enough network data).

Right.

> For high-security work, something like i2p or Tor is probably better.
> For an alternative to daily, casual internet traffic, Retroshare's
> *idea* is probably superior; by relying on existing relationships of
> trust, you can probably get better performance, and data that's
> relevant to your interests is likely to be nearby in the network
> because of social networking effects.

Aye.

> However, the flipside is without existing relationships of trust,
> you're dead in the water; I tried Retroshare for a while but had no
> friends on it, so had no access to the "core network" through any
> trusted links.

Yeah, that's kinda where I am now. I am wondering if:
 - it's possible to use my already established PGP/GPG web-of-trust;
 - it's actually a good idea to do it.

> Also, I get mixed signals about the developer attitude to some security
> aspects of the P2P side of things. For example, they use SHA1 for the
> distributed hash table, whereas in my opinion one should never use an
> even partially broken hash for a *hash table*; you never know what
> exploits are known privately that further break the hash, and should
> generally assume it's fully broken if your threat model includes
> adversaries like the NSA. If you're willing to compromise on the
> quality of the hash that underlies the entire P2P end of the system,
> I'm wary about your attitude to security overall.

Oh, this is important information, didn't have that. Thanks.

> This wasn't such a big deal 'til I saw some anons advocating Retroshare
> as a "usable crypto" solution. Well, it is; if your adversary is a
> talent-starved rent-seeking quango like the RIAA. If your adversary is
> the world's biggest circle-jerk of military cryptographers, I wouldn't
> go there, personally.

Right.

> Maybe I'm paranoid about SHA1? I'm eager for other opinions here.
> Crypto is an area where the Dunning Kruger only gets worse the deeper
> you go.

+1 on wanting to hear more about it.

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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From lists at infosecurity.ch  Sun Nov 17 23:32:55 2013
From: lists at infosecurity.ch (Fabio Pietrosanti (naif))
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 08:32:55 +0100
Subject: Omidyar influence in new Greenwald venture [was: SRF: cryptic]
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <5289C2A7.4090500@infosecurity.ch>

Il 10/22/13 1:46 AM, coderman ha scritto:
> """
> Glenn Greenwald, who has published many of the most important scoops from
> the Edward Snowden leaks, is leaving The Guardian and setting up a new
> media venture with long-time journalist Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill
> from The Nation. The venture is being funded by eBay founder Pierre
> Omidyar, who has suggested that he's prepared to invest more than $250
> million in the new venture.
> """
I don't know what they need to do with such big amount of money.

However it would be nice if they will start supporting globaleaks
project, achieving dozen of whistleblowing sites deployments in every
country in the world ;-)

-- 
Fabio Pietrosanti (naif)
HERMES - Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights
http://logioshermes.org - http://globaleaks.org - http://tor2web.org

From l at odewijk.nl  Mon Nov 18 02:07:10 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 11:07:10 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: <20131117234414.0e52405e@Neptune>
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap> <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>

 <1892324.eEEYb6oia5@lap> <20131117234414.0e52405e@Neptune>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/18 Cathal Garvey 

> Retroshare isn't "like tor", it's "the opposite of tor".
>
> Tor establishes a network of mutual distrust (kinda; you still trust
> some aspects of the network such as the directory servers).
>

Yeah, Retroshare is Tor except with a different mechanism for finding
peers. I don't see how that is the opposite of Tor. The "opposite" of Tor
probably wouldn't use Onion Routing. BitTorrent might be closest to the
opposite of Tor.

> Also, I get mixed signals about the developer attitude to some security
> aspects of the P2P side of things. For example, they use SHA1 for the
> distributed hash table, whereas in my opinion one should never use an
> even partially broken hash for a *hash table*; you never know what
> exploits are known privately that further break the hash, and should
> generally assume it's fully broken if your threat model includes
> adversaries like the NSA. If you're willing to compromise on the
> quality of the hash that underlies the entire P2P end of the system,
> I'm wary about your attitude to security overall.
>

Why does the DHT require a cryptographic quality hash? I agree that SHA1 is
too weak to be cryptographic, but a DHT is merely finding chains of other
nodes. Worst that can happen is the adversary manipulating you into
connecting to them with higher chance. Given the whole friend-to-friend
mechanisms I don't see much harm in that. Depends on the plugin that runs
above it.

I must say that this is exactly the sort of thing I think makes RetroShare
risky. Some choices can be conditionally okay. Building a big stack of
software lacks overview easily.
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From eugen at leitl.org  Mon Nov 18 02:26:02 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 11:26:02 +0100
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: 
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap> <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>

 <1892324.eEEYb6oia5@lap> <20131117234414.0e52405e@Neptune>

Message-ID: <20131118102602.GE5661@leitl.org>

On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 11:07:10AM +0100, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:

> Yeah, Retroshare is Tor except with a different mechanism for finding
> peers. I don't see how that is the opposite of Tor. The "opposite" of Tor
> probably wouldn't use Onion Routing. BitTorrent might be closest to the
> opposite of Tor.

You can run RS over Tor. In fact, IIRC RS is in Whonix.

> 
> > Also, I get mixed signals about the developer attitude to some security
> > aspects of the P2P side of things. For example, they use SHA1 for the
> > distributed hash table, whereas in my opinion one should never use an
> > even partially broken hash for a *hash table*; you never know what
> > exploits are known privately that further break the hash, and should
> > generally assume it's fully broken if your threat model includes
> > adversaries like the NSA. If you're willing to compromise on the
> > quality of the hash that underlies the entire P2P end of the system,
> > I'm wary about your attitude to security overall.
> >
> 
> Why does the DHT require a cryptographic quality hash? I agree that SHA1 is
> too weak to be cryptographic, but a DHT is merely finding chains of other
> nodes. Worst that can happen is the adversary manipulating you into
> connecting to them with higher chance. Given the whole friend-to-friend
> mechanisms I don't see much harm in that. Depends on the plugin that runs
> above it.
> 
> I must say that this is exactly the sort of thing I think makes RetroShare
> risky. Some choices can be conditionally okay. Building a big stack of
> software lacks overview easily.

RS could have profited from a less is more approach. E.g. running NNTP
could have allowed you to use standard clients. In general I'd much
prefer to connect with known (SMTP, IMAP) protocols to localhost rather
than poking an unstable, monolithic blob with usability from hell.

From lela at cyberguerrilla.org  Mon Nov 18 09:40:18 2013
From: lela at cyberguerrilla.org (Lilith Lela)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 12:40:18 -0500
Subject: SOS
Message-ID: <528A5102.1080102@cyberguerrilla.org>

Hi,

We received a request from https://twitter.com/S0Sph for us using and
recommending this site/service http://sos.ph/

Earlier, a few weeks ago, I had been briefly looking at this
https://cryptostorm.is/

These darknet tokens. R it useful in activist contexts? What you think?
Got perhaps (external to this service(s)) links and/or insights for us
so we can figure out how it works exactly, and what its vulnerabilities r?

Cheers,

Lilith

From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Mon Nov 18 05:32:05 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:32:05 +0000
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: <20131118102602.GE5661@leitl.org>
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap> <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>

 <1892324.eEEYb6oia5@lap> <20131117234414.0e52405e@Neptune>

 <20131118102602.GE5661@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <20131118133205.0f1158ba@Neptune>

> You can run RS over Tor. In fact, IIRC RS is in Whonix.

That's one way to screw with the "no filesharing" ban in Tor, which has
positive and negative consequences.

I do like the idea of layering a network of pseudonymous trust over the
Tor layer of mutual distrust, but is that not horrendously slow?

> RS could have profited from a less is more approach. E.g. running NNTP
> could have allowed you to use standard clients. In general I'd much
> prefer to connect with known (SMTP, IMAP) protocols to localhost
> rather than poking an unstable, monolithic blob with usability from
> hell.

This sounds like i2p; a P2P networking layer for applications that need
not be routing-aware? Although again; i2p creates a system of mutual
distrust whereas Retroshare assumes mutual trust. The advantages and
disadvantages of either depend on entirely social factors that are hard
to model (see [Cryptography][Law] thread on range of estimates
regarding rat-content of hacker community), so as far as the philosophy
I'm not prepared to call.

Certainly it's easier to establish a route using Tor/i2p than with
Retroshare, and it's doubtful you could have true anonymity if your
friends can see when you're online and correlate with activities of
public identities they may notice through shared interests. But then,
that's not what Retroshare is for; it's for creating networks for
social and personal use.
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From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Mon Nov 18 05:46:18 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:46:18 +0000
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: 
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap> <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>

 <1892324.eEEYb6oia5@lap> <20131117234414.0e52405e@Neptune>

Message-ID: <20131118134618.73f0092d@Neptune>

> Why does the DHT require a cryptographic quality hash? I agree that
> SHA1 is too weak to be cryptographic, but a DHT is merely finding
> chains of other nodes. Worst that can happen is the adversary
> manipulating you into connecting to them with higher chance. Given
> the whole friend-to-friend mechanisms I don't see much harm in that.
> Depends on the plugin that runs above it.

Well, the DHT is (if I recall correctly!) used not only for locating
peers for but locating files. So, for example imagine the case where an
update to Retroshare is offered from within the network: the retroshare
devs themselves estimated that to forge a malicious hash would take
weeks on consumer end hardware, and therefore that it was an
impractical attack not worthy of threat modelling.

Leaving aside the fact that your real adversary does *not have to
constrain itself to consumer end hardware*, it's the first time I've
encountered a "serious" crypto project that considers *weeks* to be
"computationally infeasible".

This is all ignoring the fact that SHA1 was built by the NSA.
Specifically (correct me if I'm mistaken): SHA0 was based on MD5, and
SHA1 was then proposed soon after as its replacement by the NSA after
some alterations to correct *undisclosed vulnerabilities*. Ahem.

So, AFAIK RS is using a hash function redesigned (for all intents and
purposes) in secret by *the adversary* which has plenty of publicly
known attacks and may well have a critical in-built attack, and relies
on this hash to route to the correct file or peer.

Once you have a peer's keys, you can keep them and trust-on-first-use,
and RS *probably* (anyone wanna check source?) uses and checks
signatures thereafter, but if the signatures are based on a SHA1 hash
you're back to square one, where a forged hash will fit a valid
signature.

On Mon, 18 Nov 2013 11:07:10 +0100
Lodewijk andré de la porte  wrote:

> 2013/11/18 Cathal Garvey 
> 
> > Retroshare isn't "like tor", it's "the opposite of tor".
> >
> > Tor establishes a network of mutual distrust (kinda; you still trust
> > some aspects of the network such as the directory servers).
> >
> 
> Yeah, Retroshare is Tor except with a different mechanism for finding
> peers. I don't see how that is the opposite of Tor. The "opposite" of
> Tor probably wouldn't use Onion Routing. BitTorrent might be closest
> to the opposite of Tor.
> 
> 
> > Also, I get mixed signals about the developer attitude to some
> > security aspects of the P2P side of things. For example, they use
> > SHA1 for the distributed hash table, whereas in my opinion one
> > should never use an even partially broken hash for a *hash table*;
> > you never know what exploits are known privately that further break
> > the hash, and should generally assume it's fully broken if your
> > threat model includes adversaries like the NSA. If you're willing
> > to compromise on the quality of the hash that underlies the entire
> > P2P end of the system, I'm wary about your attitude to security
> > overall.
> >
> 
> Why does the DHT require a cryptographic quality hash? I agree that
> SHA1 is too weak to be cryptographic, but a DHT is merely finding
> chains of other nodes. Worst that can happen is the adversary
> manipulating you into connecting to them with higher chance. Given
> the whole friend-to-friend mechanisms I don't see much harm in that.
> Depends on the plugin that runs above it.
> 
> I must say that this is exactly the sort of thing I think makes
> RetroShare risky. Some choices can be conditionally okay. Building a
> big stack of software lacks overview easily.

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From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 18 14:56:06 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 14:56:06 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Fw: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

To:  Andy Greenberg of Forbes Magazine, author of "This Machine Kills Secrets".

Keep in mind that most of what I describe here will be in my 2003 lawsuit, 02-1052.  cryptome.org/jdb-v-usa-106.htm 

    I should point out that you don't seem to be commenting about my now-numerous emails to you about these attorneys.   What's the problem?  Are you AFRAID to comment?  I think it's unfair for you to wait until I have disclosed all this material, before you comment.  

    I really think I have a right to learn WHY you claimed that I had tried to fire 'every' attorney I'd had.  Where did you hear this?   You certainly never tried to verify this claim with me!   I would have told you the truth;  I would have directed you to lawsuit 02-1052, which already contained the truth.

Robert Leen:   (You might initially be pleased to hear that Leen was the first attorney I'd actually TRIED to 'fire'.  But don't get your hopes up!  I was entirely unsuccessful at that attempt.!)

      My next attorney was assigned about November 21, 2000.   I knew 'the fix was in' because I had done NOTHING illegal.  I didn't know about the forged, fake, fraudulent appeal case (99-30210), at least the portion of which was prior to May 2000  But I had very publicly announced that I had major, major suspicions about government government corruption, especially Ryan Thomas Lund's November 25, 1997 assault on me (ordered by government employees).  And, I knew that the government had placed a tracking device on my parents' car (probably both of them) in April-June 1998.  Also, I knew that the Feds had illegally searched my house on my arrest in June 1998.  (I had been removed from my house; the house was empty of  'cops'.  They had no authority to continue to search that house, yet they did so.  
      Robert Leen refused to try to obtain any 'discovery'  shortly after my arrest about November 20, 2000.  Recognizing that Leen was trying to sabotage my legal case, I wrote a letter to the Judge (Tanner) in about December 8, 2000, complaining that Leen was trying to sabotage my case.  I was astonished (at least in part) that the Judge refused to have Leen fired.  I kept asking for Leen to be fired throughout January, February, March, and beyond in 2001.   No (good) answer by the Judge.  I began learning the law in mid-December 2000.  Starting about late February 2001, I began to write various legal motions, in order to document my complete unwillingness to accept Leen's 'representation'.  (If you just look at the docket entries for case 00-5731, you may not be able to easily identify which motions were written by me, and which w

      To show your lawyer how corrupt the Judge (Tanner) and Leen, and the prosecutor (Robb London) were (case 00-5731), during the last week of March 2001, I filed a 'notice of interlocutory appeal'.  Your lawyer presumably understands that if a 'notice of appeal' arrives at court, of an appealable issue, that divests the jurisdiction of that court to proceed with any trial.  Wanna know what happened?  The judge PROCEEDED with a 'trial' as if nothing had happened.  I filed a SECOND notice of interlocutory appeal a few weeks before the 'sentencing', and again that filing was completely ignored.
       Robert Leen was NEVER 'fired'.  In fact, in May 2010 (after being arrested for an ostensible probation violation.)  Leen actually continued to (pretend to) 'represent me'.  Even until today, I presume, he is ostensibly still 'representing' me.  At least, on the paperwork he will be listed as 'representing' me.
    I should point out, also, that it was about this time (early in Leen's malicious 'representation' of me) that I first heard the wacky comment (by the prosecutor Robb London) of his resistance to having Leen replaced.  London said something LIKE "Bell fires all his attorneys".  By now, Mr. Greenberg, you are well aware that this isn't true.  You really need to find Robb London, and ask him if he ever said something like "Bell fires all his attorneys".  Perhaps London would defend himself by claiming that he looked into the court record, noticed that at various times the name of my lawyer had changed, and he decided this 'must have' meant that I succeeded (and, therefore, certainly tried) in replacing these attorneys.  

Annemarie Levins
      I guess I'm getting tired of re-hashing what you could, and SHOULD, have read in my lawsuit, 02-1052, filed July 14, 2003.   Levins was assigned shortly after my ostensible 'conviction' in September 2001.  (The reason, as I vaguely recall, was that Robert Leen had stated, "I don't do appeals".   I responded by saying to Leen, in what was only about 25% intended as a joke, "You don't do appeals.  You merely make them necessary.")   Over the next 4-5 months I wrote Levins numerous letters, containing easily 100 pages of single-spaced text, listing HUNDREDS of very arguable appeal issues.  Levins, to my recollection, NEVER responded to even a single one of my letters!  An increasing sense of dread resulted.  I felt it was quite obvious that Levins was planning to further victimize me, in precisely the same way Avenia, Mandel, and Leen had done.  (Remember, I did not then yet know how Solovy had victimized me, by concealing the
 pre-May-2000 existence of appeal 99-30210.)
     As I vaguely recall (not referring to any record) my appeal had to be filed on a Monday, perhaps it was in January or February 2002.  At virtually the last minute, perhaps on a Thursday before,  I finally received a copy of "the appeal".  By that time, I had learned plenty of federal criminal and appeal law.  I saw the appeal that Levins had written, the one that she had CONCEALED from me for 4 months, and it was obvious that it was intended to sabotage my case.  Which, in fact, it did.  There were at least 100 incredibly valid appeal issues which, if they had been argued properly, would have easily freed me, but Levins argued NONE of them.
    Perhaps the day later, maybe it was Friday, the weekday before the appeal had to be filed, I obtained a telephone call to Levins.  In that call, I accused Levins of deliberately sabotaging my case, saying that her failure to even respond to my 100+ pages of letters proved that she was a crook.  She didn't deny it!  When it was clear that Levins wasn't going to apologize, I ORDERED her to NOT file that appeal.  I told her, "You're fired!  You must not file that appeal!  And if you're already filed it, I order you to withdraw it!!!".     Strong words, but quite appropriate under the circumstances.   The result?  She DIDN'T resign.  She filed the appeal.  She DIDN'T have it withdrawn.  The appeal lost, as I knew it would.
---

    Mr. Greenberg, you should be utterly and completely ashamed for what you have done.  You have thoroughly and completely misrepresented virtually every fact, implication, and nuance relating to me and my legal cases, and virtually everything I said/wrote to you.  You LIED by claiming of your lawyer, "She read Bell's letter, then checked his legal file, which showed that he had fired practically every court-appointed lawyer ever assigned to him---little wonder that he had botched his appeals.  It also showed he had filed fifty-one lawsuits against the government while in prison---nearly all dismissed immediately.  She wanted nothing to do with it."
    Mr. Greenberg, your lawyer is totally incompetent to have said ANY of these things.  I have made perfectly clear in my recent set of emails to you:
1.    You never verified any of these supposed 'facts', when in fact you had access to my 02-1052 lawsuit which would have told you the truth.
2.     I never was SUCCESSFUL at firing ANY attorney assigned to my case.
3.     I never ATTEMPTED to fire Avenia, Mandel,  Floit, Bukey, and Solovy.
4.     When, finally, I did begin to ATTEMPT to fire an attorney, Leen, I was entirely unsuccessful, indeed for a period of 9 years.
5.     When I did ATTEMPT to fire Annemarie Levins, and ordered her to NOT file that appeal, I was completely unsuccessful in that attempt.
6.      I did not file "Fifty-one lawsuits against the government".   As I have already explained to you, I DID file well over 100 "habeas corpus" actions, which your lawyer was apparently unable to distinguish from 'lawsuits'.  But since your lawyer probably didn't even bother to do anymore than read the dockets for some of these cases, it is perfectly obvious that she had no genuine idea why these habeas corpus actions were "dismissed immediately".  In other words, she (presumably) didn't know whether those dismissals were 'genuine', or whether the dismissals were entirely frivolous.  I can assure you that these dismissals were entirely frivolous.  But, you didn't check my side of the story, because YOU DIDN'T ASK ME!  That's called "bias".

7.     _I_ never "botched any appeals".  The appeals, to the extent they were 'botched', were 'botched' by the attorneys who were assigned to me, and (I claim) were actually assigned for the PURPOSE of 'botching' those appeals.

    Mr. Greenberg, at this point you have an obligation, not merely to APOLOGIZE, but in fact to set the record straight.  And I mean, not only in future editions of your book, but also to investigate the reality of the facts of the case.  After all of the victimization I faced at the hands of the government and its thugs, you come along and make the situation worse!  You try to make me look like a nut, when the reality is precisely as I have long claimed:  I am the victim of the Federal government and its employees and agents.  At no time did I lie or misrepresent the truth.  At EVERY time the Federal government and its agents misrepresent the truth.

     Mr. Greenberg, I have decided to publish the contents of this email in the Cypherpunks mailing list, to show that I have put you on notice as to your complicity in this matter.  You can fix part of the problem by changing your book, and by writing a long article for Forbes telling (at least) how you claim to have been hoodwinked by the Federal Government.  Morally, that will help a bit, but it won't change the fact that you were utterly unwilling to pursue the truth when it mattered most.

         Jim Bell

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Jim Bell 
To: Andrew Greenberg  
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2013 1:26 PM
Subject: Fw: Your errors about me in your book.

Mr Greenberg,
      I will continue about the history of 'my' attorneys, who were 'my' attorneys in name only:  They were actually the attorneys of "The United States of America", and of their colluding employees.    While I would like to say that my 'next' attorney was Jonathan Solovy, given the paperwork I should first deal with a couple of 'asterisks', named Catherine Floit and David Bukey.

    At some point after I wrote that letter to the Ninth Circuit Court, I received a letter (about June 2000?) from an attorney named Catherine Floit.  I called her by telephone, and I explained a bit about the history of prior attorneys Peter Avenia and Judith Mandel.  I further explained that I had very, very serious suspicions about government corruption by these attorneys, and the government in general.  I said that I would be suing those attorneys, and any other people who assisted the government corruption I then suspected.  (Note:  Remember, at that point, I did not know about the pre-April existence of phony, forged Ninth Circuit Court appeal 99-30210.)  I was surprised when that phone call to Catherine Floit didn't last very long after that!  (A minute?)

    'What happened?', I thought!  It turns out that Floit later contacted the people who had appointed her (the Public Defenders' Office in Seattle Washington, I think.) and asked to be de-assigned to my case.  I later heard that she CLAIMED (quite falsely) that I had 'threatened' her!   But I hadn't threatened her at all!  I had no reason to do so, particularly at that early stage in her representation.  But at this point I knew very little about the law.   Eventually (a few years later, after I first saw the docket for the forged appeal case 99-30210, in late June 2003; see Jonathan Solovy's 'representation', which I will shortly write about) I realized that Floit must have been informed about the fact that the case she had been assigned to handle, 99-30210, was ALREADY a fraud, and in my phone call with her she learned that I was rather well-informed about the corruption of those two prior attorneys, Avenia and Mandel, AND that I intended
 to sue them, etc.  In other words, she understood that if she took that case, and if she did what the government wanted her to do, she herself was almost certainly going to get sued, and for exactly the kinds of things that Avenia and Mandel were already 'in the crosshairs' for having done in the past.

    When an attorney is ASSIGNED a case (by a judge or a court) it's fairly hard to 'get out of it'.  Such an attorney has to have a rather 'good' (but not necessarily, 'valid') reason to be relieved of that responsibility.  Floit (I realized, years later) could not have simply said, "Jim Bell is on to them/us!!!  He's going to sue us!".   Floit could not have said, "The government is engaging in corruption against Bell, and I don't want to be part of it!".    So, what was she going to do?   It turns out that the easiest way for her to get out of the assignment was to (falsely) claim, "Jim Bell threatened me!!!".   Which she, apparently, did.  But I DIDN'T threaten her.  But that didn't matter:  Floit's mere allegation amounted to a "Get out of representation free" card, analogous to Monopoly's "Get out of jail free" card.  She was not obligated to actually prove I'd done anything:  No proof was required, or even requested.  The
 allegation itself was quite enough.  As she, no doubt, knew quite well.

     A few weeks later, another attorney (David Bukey) was assigned, but I didn't hear of that.  I was not given any notification that Bukey had been assigned:  Apparently Bukey heard of his assignment, refused it, and he never contacted me.  Nor did anyone else contact me, either, on any subject, including that of Bukey or his (brief) assignment to my case.   During this time, I wrote yet another letter to the Ninth Circuit Court basically asking, "Where's my representation?".  

Notice, now, that the count is up to FOUR:  Avenia, Mandel, Floit, and Bukey:  None of these attorneys did I ever attempt to 'fire'.  (And I didn't even learn that Bukey was supposed to be representing me, until after he had been relieved of that.)   The closest to even 'attempting to fire' I had done was when I tried to prevent Avenia from being relieved, because I didn't want his successor (who turned out to be Mandel: I didn't want anybody assigned, because I had already gotten promises from Avenia to do investigation, which eventually he never effectively did) to be assigned.    But at that, I was unsuccessful at both, of course.

Jonathan Solovy:
    Eventually, Solovy was assigned to case 99-30210, as I vaguely recall in about August 2000.  Keep in mind that I STILL didn't know about the pre-May-2000 existence of case 99-30210 as of then:  I would only learn of that pre-May-2000 existence when I wrote for, and received, the docket for 99-30210 in late June 2003.
    Solovy didn't do anything OBVIOUSLY wrong.  At least, I didn't recognize that in 2000.  He wrote the appeal, 99-30210, filed it, and it lost. I think he may also have written a Petition for Certiorari to the Supreme Court, which also obviously failed.   (I don't recall what they contained; I didn't learn the law until beginning December 2000).   But I can say this much:  At no time during Solovy's representation did he EVER say to me anything that would have alerted me to the pre-May-2000 existence of case 99-30210.  I may not have known much (or even 'anything') about Federal law in September, 2000, but if he had said something like "Jim, I see you've been assigned pro-se to this appeal since July 1999:  What are your theories as to appealing this case?"  I would have been alerted, with a distinct start, and I would have instantly asked him, "What do you mean?   I thought I began this case in April 2000, when I wrote a letter to the
 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals?  What's this about July 1999?!?".

     By the time I first saw a copy of the docket for case 99-30210, on about June 20, 2003, I knew FAR more Federal law.  I'd spent since about December 2000 in a jail/prison law library.  In fact, two of the REASONS I wrote to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in early June 2003, asking for the docket for 99-30210, were:

1.    Clearing up loose ends for my Portland Federal Court lawsuit, 02-1052, I remembered that I had (thought!) initiated that appeal (99-30210) by means of mailing a letter to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, asking for an appeal.  (In case 97-5270, as I recall).  As of June 2003, I understood that the rules required that to appeal, somebody needs to file a 'Notice of Appeal' within about two weeks of the date of the order-entry.  My letter of April 2000 was, I then realized, nearly ten (10) months too late to initiate an appeal in that case.  "So why," I thought, "wasn't that letter immediately rejected?!?"   and "Why did they give me that appeal?"

2.    At some point, I recognized that the case-number of that appeal (99-30210) started with the number, "99", which stands for "1999", the date that appeal was initiated.  In other words, I eventually realized (June 2003) that that appeal had been begun in 1999, NOT in 2000.   Evidently, my letter of April 2000 DIDN'T 'start the ball rolling' on that appeal.  

    Therefore, and being quite suspicious, I wrote a bland, routine note in early June 2003 to the Ninth Circuit, asking for the copy of the docket for case 99-30210, which I had never seen before.  I received an envelope about June 20, 2003, containing a copy of that docket.  The most obvious thing that struck me about that docket was that case 99-30210 DIDN'T start in April 2000, as I had previously assumed.  It was quite clear, instead that it had begun in July 1999.  (Although, the 'Notice of Appeal' had actually been filed about June 20, 1999).   Something VERY VERY suspicious had been going on!  Secondly, I looked through the various docket entries, and I could see that this case had appeared to have been active:  Ostensibly, I had actually been 'pro se' (representing myself) which I knew that I hadn't been doing!  (because, of course, I hadn't even known about the existence of that case, prior to May 2000, thinking I initiated it with
 a letter to the Ninth Circuit in late April 2000).   In fact, I could see that there were two filings, about November 10, 1999, and March 2, 2000, which purported to have been filed by me!  (And, obviously, I knew that I hadn't filed them!)  Most importantly, I realized that I had not received ANY of these many mailings while I was at Seatac FDC (until Sept 3, 1999) nor any while I was at Phoenix FCI (From Sept 10, 1999 though April 13, 2000, when I was released; I was at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center for a week from Sept 3 to Sept 10, 1999.)

    Note:  I received NONE of the mailings from the Ninth Circuit Court during July 1999 through April 2000, because the Bureau of Prisons staff at both those locations hid them from me.  (Did not deliver them to me).  If I had received EVEN ONE of those mailings, I would have been alerted that an appeal existed.  I didn't receive even a single one.  Of course, I wasn't EXPECTING a single one, either, because I was not then aware that appeal 99-30210 existed.

    But there was more.   I looked at the docket item numbers at the middle of the docket pages (between the dates on the left, and the descriptions of the entries on the right) and I noticed that they were not all there.  Some were out of order (I later understood that merely being out of order is not abnormal) but 29 of the first 79 docket entry numbers simply were not present!   Since I already knew there had to be a dramatic amount of corruption associated with this case, I considered that a very significant clue.  Later, weeks and months later, I showed this docket to numerous 'jailhouse lawyers', and to a person, they said they had never seen even a single 'missing' docket entry number on any dockets they had ever seen.  Over the subsequent years, I also looked at any docket I could get my hands on, and never once was I able to identify even a single 'missing' docket entry number on any docket.

    An explanation is in order.  I believe that in about May 2000, some of the staff of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals engaged in a 'forgery party' of the docket for case 99-30210.  I think that they realized that they could not deny me an appeal in that probation-revocation case, BECAUSE THEY HAD ALREADY GIVEN ME THAT APPEAL!  But, they also realized that they couldn't simply continue on with that forgery, because they knew that I DIDN'T KNOW of the existence of appeal 99-30210 during the time of June 1999 through April 2000.  They knew that they couldn't simply initiate a new appeal, because a record of appeal 99-30210 already existed.  They also knew that they couldn't allow me to see a copy of the docket for 99-30210, because that would have alerted me (just as it eventually alerted me in June 2003) that the appeal had existed, yet had been concealed from me during the period June 1999 through April 2000.  What they had to do, I think,
 was to RE-forge that docket, which they did in May 2000, and then assign a colluding attorney (First Floit, then Bukey, then Solovy) who would help conceal the history of this case from me, and then write a serviceable 'appeal', so that it could lose:  Their hope, apparently, was that I would be satisfied with that.  And until June 2003, I was indeed 'satisfied'.

     Perhaps a couple months after I first saw that copy of the docket for case 99-30210, I wrote a letter to Jonathan Solovy.  (He had never been 'de-assigned' to my case).   I don't recall,  precisely, what I said (It's been 10 years!), but I asked him to look into into the problem.  His response?  Well, suddenly he had developed 'carpal tunnel syndrome' (I was well aware of that condition) and he couldn't handle my case anymore!   I insisted; He wrote to the judge, asking that he be allowed to withdraw.  Actually, I think he wrote to the WRONG judge!   I think he wrote to Judge Burgess, of the District Court case, 97-5270, NOT the Ninth Circuit appeals court  (99-30210).  But it didn't matter:  he was allowed to withdraw.

    Please note:  Jonathan Solovy was my FIFTH attorney, if you are counting Avenia, Mandel, Floit, and Bukey before him.  And note that I didn't try to get Solovy, either, 'fired'.  Indeed, yet again I wanted to see Solovy to continue to handle that case (99-30210) in large part BECAUSE I knew that he had committed fraud against me and, kinda-sorta, against the court as well.  But, Solovy's fraud was in league with the U.S. Attorneys (Seattle), the Federal Bureau of Prisons staff at FDC Seatac, and at FCI Phoenix, and the staff of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and possibly others.

    So, where did you come up with that claim that I fired "all" of my attorneys, HMMMMMMMM?????????   Sorry if I display a little schadenfreude, but I think I've earned the right to complain.    And I still haven't yet mentioned attorney Robert Leen, and Annemarie Levins, either!!!   I'll talk about them next. 

    Jim Bell

----- Forwarded Message -----

On 11/14/13 7:15 PM, "Jim Bell"  wrote:

Mr. Greenberg,
    This is further commentary about your
 claim that I fired 'every' attorney I was assigned.  That, as I previously stated, was and is laughably incorrect.
      Please see Claims 130 through 145, in my July 2003 Lawsuit, "James Dalton Bell et al v. District Courts of Tacoma and Seattle, et al", case number 02-1052, as amended on about July 14, 2003, for what I mentioned in my previous message, copied below.   It's available on the Web, at:      cryptome.org/jdb-v-usa-106.htm 

   See, further, Claims 146-161, describing how
 attorney Judith Mandel was forced onto me.  Strictly speaking, I didn't try to 'fire' Mandel:  More accurately, I tried to prevent Mandel from being inflicted onto me, although I was unsuccessful.  Mandel actually REQUESTED to withdraw, on about June 2, 1999   (See my Claim 158 in Lawsuit 02-1052).

    You will notice very few references to forged, fraudulent 9th Circuit Court of Appeal case 99-30210 in my lawsuit.  The reason is that I was having another person edit this lawsuit, in the Portland Oregon area, and I only discovered the pre-April-2000 existence of case 99-30210 in about June 20, 2003.   That lawsuit had been originally filed in about July 2002, and there was a 1-year limitation period on my amending that lawsuit, in order to obtain the benefit of the earlier (2002) filing date.  Thus, I had very little time in which to do those edits:  I had to write a very
 few such edits, mail them to the person doing the edits in the Portland area, where he made those edits, and then have copies of the amendment printed up and filed at Portland Oregon Federal Court.

      It was, I believe, Judith Mandel who filed the one-page "Notice of Appeal" (About June 20, 1999) for my probation-revocation case in Tacoma Federal Court. (And she resigned about June 21, 1999).   But she never sent me a copy of that notice.  Of course, I didn't know that at the time.  (And she never mailed to me a copy of her file on my case, which she should have done if she had been going to 'allow' me to defend myself in any subsequent appeal.)   Even that wouldn't have been a problem, EXCEPT that all of the mailings subsequently done by the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals (or should have been done?) were never delivered to me:  First, at my address at Seatac Federal Detention
 Center (FDC), until about Sept 3, 1999, and subsequently (beginning about Sept  10, 1999) at Phoenix FCI.   The only plausible explanation for this combination is that there was careful collusion between Mandel, the Tacoma Federal Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the staff of Seatac FDC and (later) Phoexnix FCI.  If even ONE of the mailings that I should have gotten from the Ninth Circuit Court had actually arrived and had been delivered to me, I would have been aware of the existence of that appeal, case 99-30210.

    My recollection is that in April 2000, I wrote a letter to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, still unaware of the existence of case 99-30210.  I demanded an appeal on my probation-revocation case.  (I had been told, by a jailhouse-lawyer, in early 2000 that I had a right to an appeal.)   What I didn't know (because I didn't know the law at that point)
 that in order to obtain an appeal, I would have had to have filed a "Notice of Appeal" within two weeks after the entry of the order:  About June 1999.  So, if I had know the rules, I would not have written that letter, because I would have realized that I was about 10 months too late.  But, the reality is that the appeal ALREADY EXISTED, though I didn't know that at the time.   In fact, I only learned in June 2003 that case 99-30210 had existed as early as July 1999.

    So, you can see that I DIDN'T even attempt to fire attorney Judith Mandel.  So, why did you say I fired her?  Why did you say I fired her predecessor, Peter Avenia?  I think by now you're getting a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, but it's going to get worse, much worse!  I will continue to show that I did not SUCCEED in firing ANY attorney, and that in all cases those attorneys continued to
 victimize me until the damage they could do was done.  Then, on their own initiative (and with the approval of a colluding judge), they left.
        Jim Bell

----- Forwarded Message -----
   From: Jim Bell 
To: Andrew Greenberg 
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 12:21 AM
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.

From Page 132 of "This Machine Kills
 Secrets".
    You commented about my
 "truly phenomenal discovery".   I have sent you a copy of the as-published PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty), for my isotopically-modified optical fiber invention.  Corning says that 300 billion meters of optical fiber are made each year; If I get 10% market penetration, that's 30 billion meters.  At $0.25 per meter of  fiber royalty, that's $7.5 billion per year, or $150 billion over the patent's 20-year lifetime.
    However, this is only one of a few dozen inventions I have thought of involving isotopically-modified materials, although it is the most readily doable and is like the most profitable.  In principle, however, my fiber optic inventions number far more than this:  The main problem is that isotope separation is rather expensive, and any such invention isn't worth doing unless the benefit from the material or device exceeds the cost of that separation.  The main reason my optical
 fiber is practical is that the isotopically-modified core of the 125-micron fiber is only about 30 microns in diameter, so that it uses very little isotopically-modified material.   My estimate of 5000 patents is still reasonable, based on what I know now, but it will require the development of ever-cheaper ways of separating isotopes.

Next:
    The article says (page 133) that "he had fired practically every court-appointed lawyer ever assigned to him".   Actually, that is absolutely NOT true, although the truth requires some explanation that you didn't bother to ask me.   I could say, accurately, that I "Never"  fired ANY attorney, but again that requires some explanation.  (More precisely, I never SUCCEEDED in firing ANY lawyer:  In every circumstance where I tried to fire an attorney, that attorney was continued to be forced upon me, for weeks, months, or in one
 case years, and if and when that attorney finally withdrew, it wasn't because _I_ wanted him to leave, it was because he (or she) had finally achieved the damage to me that he (or she) was trying to do, and he (or she) obtained the permission of the judge to withdraw.
    You have a major responsibility here!  To my recollection, you NEVER asked me about me 'firing' any attorney, yet you put this material in your book as if it were true.  You have based your commentary on these false 'facts', and you didn't check with me to see if I had a correction or other explanation.

    Peter Avenia was my first attorney (1997-1999).   I never even tried to fire him.  And, in fact, I tried to get the judge (Burgess) in about April 1999 to REFUSE Avenia's request to withdraw.  Why?  In 1998, I consented to an unnecessary 'mental evaluation' (in Springfield Missouri)
 based on Avenia's promise that he would investigate my allegations that the government had been spying on me.  In fact, the only basis for the government's request for a 'mental evaluation' was my claim that the government was spying on me!   Please note that the government didn't deny that it had been spying; the prosecutor didn't comment on that.  Can you see why this is a problem?  It turns out that the government was, indeed, spying on me, including during the period of April 1998 and June 1998, after which they arrested me for a 'supervised violation'.  In fact, they had placed a tracking device in at least one of my parents' cars (A Lincoln).

     "What's wrong with that", you might ask?  Well, in 2012 the US Supreme Court ruled (U.S. v. Jones) that such a placement was a "search" under the 4th Amendment.  Indeed, in a 1999 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case (U.S. v.
 McIver) , that court ruled that it was legal (under certain circumstances inapplicable to me) for 'cops' (term used generically) to place a tracking device on a subject's car.  Problem was, in the McIver there was actually a CRIME being investigated (Marijuana growing) and the subject was directly linked to that crime.  In stark contrast, I was neither suspected or known to have been involved in any crime, then-past, then-present, or then-future.   In other words, these Feds actually just placed the tracking on the car without any legitimate law-enforcement reason.  They did not want, however, to have the fact of their arguably-illegal placement of the tracking devices(s) openly mentioned in any court hearing.  I, quite the opposite, DEMANDED to my attorney, Avenia, that he verify the tracking device(s) placement, and argue the matter in court.  He promised to do that, in mid 1998, but he later (April 1999) broke his
 promise by resigning, and his replacement also refused.  In other words, I was denied an actual defense due to the collusion of two of 'my' attorneys as well as the government.

    One of the major things I wanted to do was to prove that the Feds were employing what should be illegal tactics (such as the GPS tracking device) not for any legitimate reason, but simply because they considered me to be their 'enemy', not because they thought I was going to commit any crime.   I wanted to be able to show that they were "offending" against me, because of (among other things) my allegation that they had employed a jailhouse snitch ("Ryan Thomas Lund") to attack me, which he did on November 25, 1997.  (See version 1.06 of my Portland Oregon Federal Court lawsuit, 02-1052, version filed in July of 2003.

   Avenia agreed to have an investigator do that.  I went to
 that (useless) evaluation, but when I returned I continued to insist on the investigation that Avenia had promised.  Indeed, he eventually did send an investigator ("Sharon Callas") to do an investigation, in Vancouver Washington.  Mysteriously, she resigned very shortly after doing that investigation, and I was never given the results.
    Avenia was allowed (by the Judge, Burgess, now dead) to resign in about April 1999.  I objected at a court hearing, because I had gotten Avenia to PROMISE to do an investigation, and I was afraid (correctly, as it turns out) that any replacement of him would fail or refuse to bring out the issues concerning the government's crimes and misdeeds against me.
     More tomorrow.
               Jim Bell
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From albill at openbuddha.com  Mon Nov 18 15:04:47 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 15:04:47 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>

Why are we being spammed with this? I don’t care about your lawyers or books with you in them.

Al Billings
albill at openbuddha.com
http://makehacklearn.org

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 18 15:12:36 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 15:12:36 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
Message-ID: <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Then don't read the message, Al.  The reality is that Greenberg wrote a very prominent book, which effectively libeled me on the subject of events which are related to Cypherpunks.  I think that the readers of this list will want to know that, about Mr. Greenberg, and in the future they will want to see what he does about it.
           Jim Bell

________________________________
 From: Al Billings 
To: Jim Bell  
Cc: Andrew Greenberg ; "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 3:04 PM
Subject: Re: Your errors about me in your book.

Why are we being spammed with this? I don’t care about your lawyers or books with you in them.

Al Billings
albill at openbuddha.com
http://makehacklearn.org
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From albill at openbuddha.com  Mon Nov 18 15:18:51 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 15:18:51 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
 <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>

It sounds very important to you and spam to the rest of us.

On Nov 18, 2013, at 3:12 PM, Jim Bell  wrote:

> Then don't read the message, Al.  The reality is that Greenberg wrote a very prominent book, which effectively libeled me on the subject of events which are related to Cypherpunks.  I think that the readers of this list will want to know that, about Mr. Greenberg, and in the future they will want to see what he does about it.
>            Jim Bell
> 
> 
> From: Al Billings 
> To: Jim Bell  
> Cc: Andrew Greenberg ; "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
> Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 3:04 PM
> Subject: Re: Your errors about me in your book.
> 
> Why are we being spammed with this? I don’t care about your lawyers or books with you in them.
> 
> 
> Al Billings
> albill at openbuddha.com
> http://makehacklearn.org
> 
> 
> 

Al Billings
albill at openbuddha.com
http://makehacklearn.org

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From lela at cyberguerrilla.org  Mon Nov 18 12:42:15 2013
From: lela at cyberguerrilla.org (Lilith Lela)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 15:42:15 -0500
Subject: SOS
In-Reply-To: <20131118200046.710fc6ec@Neptune>
References: <528A5102.1080102@cyberguerrilla.org>
 <20131118200046.710fc6ec@Neptune>
Message-ID: <528A7BA7.70204@cyberguerrilla.org>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Cathal,

Thank you. Yes, we were NOT going to use without chaining.
We'll just give it a try for a month, and dig sum deeper.

Cheers,

Lilith

On 18/11/13 15:00, Cathal Garvey wrote:
> Tokens are a clever way to solve a specific problem; when you sign
> up for a VPN service, whether with credit card or bitcoin, the
> service knows that *one person* has just signed up, and *this
> person* is the one using the secrets and settings provided to allow
> access to the network.
> 
> Tokens are transferable, and transferring tokens is encouraged.
> This means that when I buy a token, the service cannot know for
> sure whether I am the one using them later on, or someone I've
> given them to or sold them to.
> 
> However: The VPN provider still knows that *this IP address with
> this configuration of settings and this operating system (+version)
> is using this browser to connect to these sites at these times*. In
> other words, the actual identities of users are still very much in
> the clear to the VPN provider if no other steps are taken; tokens
> just make it harder to correlate these users with the payment
> information provided, and can potentially allow many users in the
> same city (who may be NAT'd together at the public-IP level) to
> achieve increased anonymity by mixing their traffic.
> 
> You can make things much more secure (I think?) by chaining VPNs, 
> because now the first VPN knows your public IP address, and the
> second knows your traffic, but neither knows both unless they
> collude. However, both probably still can infer a lot by your
> OS/Browser/Access times/traffic volume, etc.
> 
> On Mon, 18 Nov 2013 12:40:18 -0500 Lilith Lela
>  wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> We received a request from https://twitter.com/S0Sph for us using
>> and recommending this site/service http://sos.ph/
>> 
>> Earlier, a few weeks ago, I had been briefly looking at this 
>> https://cryptostorm.is/
>> 
>> These darknet tokens. R it useful in activist contexts? What you 
>> think? Got perhaps (external to this service(s)) links and/or 
>> insights for us so we can figure out how it works exactly, and
>> what its vulnerabilities r?
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Lilith
> 

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Version: GnuPG v1.4.15 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

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From shelley at misanthropia.info  Mon Nov 18 16:05:11 2013
From: shelley at misanthropia.info (shelley at misanthropia.info)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 16:05:11 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>
Message-ID: <20131119000514.EBD15680162@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>

I don't consider it to be spam.  It's relevant to the list and the history of cypherpunks.  What was done to Jim was so egregiously wrong, I think he has the right to correct the facts whenever possible.  Greenberg has a responsibility to address these concerns.

We have new list members all the time who may not know the backstory, and it's important.  We're adults, we can just skip over list-relevant posts we don't want to read.

-S

 On Nov 18, 2013 3:26 PM, Al Billings <albill at openbuddha.com> wrote: 

It sounds very important to you and spam to the rest of us.
On Nov 18, 2013, at 3:12 PM, Jim Bell <jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com> wrote:Then don't read the message, Al.  The reality is that Greenberg wrote a very prominent book, which effectively libeled me on the subject of events which are related to Cypherpunks.  I think that the readers of this list will want to know that, about Mr. Greenberg, and in the future they will want to see what he does about it.
           Jim Bell

        From: Al Billings <albill at openbuddha.com>
 To: Jim Bell <jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com> 
Cc: Andrew Greenberg <agreenberg at forbes.com>; "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" <cypherpunks at cpunks.org> 
 Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 3:04 PM
 Subject: Re: Your errors about me in your book.

Why are we being spammed with this? I don’t care about your lawyers or books with you in them.Al Billingsalbill at openbuddha.comhttp://makehacklearn.org

Al Billings
albill at openbuddha.com
http://makehacklearn.org

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From grarpamp at gmail.com  Mon Nov 18 16:47:02 2013
From: grarpamp at gmail.com (grarpamp)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 19:47:02 -0500
Subject: US Senate Virtual Currency Hearing Summary
Message-ID: 

Curiously, US law enforcement feels it already has the general laws it
needs. Yet it needs the talent base to use them, aka: SS is hiring.

The US is behind in its guidance to business... US companies
large and small very much want to play and lead just as soon as a
compliance/certification framework appears in which they can safely
build a business. Unofficial regulatory 'guidelines' and failure to issue
business accounts/licenses due to that are not helping. Predicted that
virtual currencies will be regulated, tax reported, etc at the exchange
level as usual. US financial/consumer markets will evolve normally as
with any fiat currency. Was felt US needed to be on par with and peer
internationally for global regulation.

The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse, Tor, etc were all in effect, yet
business and finance seemed to be the leaning and balancing interest
of the hearing.

A couple statements regarding "anonymity can be catastrophic", anonymity
regulation, etc were made that were left open without further comment.

Al Gore created Bitcoin.

Bitcoin markets continued their rise after the hearing.

Add/Correct/Discuss.

From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Mon Nov 18 12:00:46 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 20:00:46 +0000
Subject: SOS
In-Reply-To: <528A5102.1080102@cyberguerrilla.org>
References: <528A5102.1080102@cyberguerrilla.org>
Message-ID: <20131118200046.710fc6ec@Neptune>

Tokens are a clever way to solve a specific problem; when you sign up
for a VPN service, whether with credit card or bitcoin, the service
knows that *one person* has just signed up, and *this person* is the
one using the secrets and settings provided to allow access to the
network.

Tokens are transferable, and transferring tokens is encouraged. This
means that when I buy a token, the service cannot know for sure whether
I am the one using them later on, or someone I've given them to or sold
them to.

However: The VPN provider still knows that *this IP address with this
configuration of settings and this operating system (+version) is using
this browser to connect to these sites at these times*. In other words,
the actual identities of users are still very much in the clear to the
VPN provider if no other steps are taken; tokens just make it harder to
correlate these users with the payment information provided, and can
potentially allow many users in the same city (who may be NAT'd
together at the public-IP level) to achieve increased anonymity by
mixing their traffic.

You can make things much more secure (I think?) by chaining VPNs,
because now the first VPN knows your public IP address, and the second
knows your traffic, but neither knows both unless they collude.
However, both probably still can infer a lot by your OS/Browser/Access
times/traffic volume, etc.

On Mon, 18 Nov 2013 12:40:18 -0500
Lilith Lela  wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> We received a request from https://twitter.com/S0Sph for us using and
> recommending this site/service http://sos.ph/
> 
> Earlier, a few weeks ago, I had been briefly looking at this
> https://cryptostorm.is/
> 
> These darknet tokens. R it useful in activist contexts? What you
> think? Got perhaps (external to this service(s)) links and/or
> insights for us so we can figure out how it works exactly, and what
> its vulnerabilities r?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Lilith

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From sdw at lig.net  Mon Nov 18 20:10:26 2013
From: sdw at lig.net (Stephen Williams)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 20:10:26 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
 <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>
Message-ID: <528AE4B2.9040103@lig.net>

I have no idea what this is about beyond what you say below, but off hand, you have libeled everyone else on this mailing list 
by the statement in the subject of these messages:

"Your errors about me in your book."  I can assure you that I made no errors about you in my book.  Rather than the apparent 
royal you, perhaps you could be more specific and careful next time.

Good day sir.

On 11/18/13 3:18 PM, Al Billings wrote:
> It sounds very important to you and spam to the rest of us.
>
> On Nov 18, 2013, at 3:12 PM, Jim Bell > wrote:
>
>> Then don't read the message, Al.  The reality is that Greenberg wrote a very prominent book, which effectively libeled me on 
>> the subject of events which are related to Cypherpunks.  I think that the readers of this list will want to know that, about 
>> Mr. Greenberg, and in the future they will want to see what he does about it.
>>            Jim Bell
>>
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* Al Billings >
>> *To:* Jim Bell >
>> *Cc:* Andrew Greenberg >; "cypherpunks at cpunks.org 
>> " >
>> *Sent:* Monday, November 18, 2013 3:04 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: Your errors about me in your book.
>>
>> Why are we being spammed with this? I don’t care about your lawyers or books with you in them.
>>
>>
>> Al Billings
>> albill at openbuddha.com 
>> http://makehacklearn.org 
>>
>>
>>
>
> Al Billings
> albill at openbuddha.com 
> http://makehacklearn.org
>

sdw

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From skquinn at rushpost.com  Mon Nov 18 19:15:52 2013
From: skquinn at rushpost.com (Shawn K. Quinn)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 21:15:52 -0600
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <20131119000514.EBD15680162@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
References: <20131119000514.EBD15680162@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
Message-ID: <1384830952.14834.49199625.73582DCB@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Mon, Nov 18, 2013, at 06:05 PM, shelley at misanthropia.info wrote:
> I don't consider it to be spam.  It's relevant to the list and the
> history of cypherpunks.  What was done to Jim was so egregiously
> wrong, I think he has the right to correct the facts whenever possible.
>  Greenberg has a responsibility to address these concerns.

+1

I know if facts about me were fucked up this badly, I would definitely
go on record to correct them. If said facts were relevant to the topic
of this list, yes, I would be posting about them here too.

-- 
  Shawn K. Quinn
  skquinn at rushpost.com

From author at anonymousbitcoinbook.com  Mon Nov 18 19:53:58 2013
From: author at anonymousbitcoinbook.com (author at anonymousbitcoinbook.com)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 23:53:58 -0400
Subject: [tor-talk] US Senate Virtual Currency Hearing Summary
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <5ab35566b35c166fd4157e674a55157e@anonymousbitcoinbook.com>

Ernie Allen from the International Centre for Missing and Exploited 
Children was a real disappointment, insofar as his statements about 
anonymity and government control were incredibly myopic.

If your plan to protect children is to initiate force against people of 
all ages, you're going to have a bad day...

-Kristov

On 2013-11-18 20:47, grarpamp wrote:
> Curiously, US law enforcement feels it already has the general laws it
> needs. Yet it needs the talent base to use them, aka: SS is hiring.
> 
> The US is behind in its guidance to business... US companies
> large and small very much want to play and lead just as soon as a
> compliance/certification framework appears in which they can safely
> build a business. Unofficial regulatory 'guidelines' and failure to 
> issue
> business accounts/licenses due to that are not helping. Predicted that
> virtual currencies will be regulated, tax reported, etc at the 
> exchange
> level as usual. US financial/consumer markets will evolve normally as
> with any fiat currency. Was felt US needed to be on par with and peer
> internationally for global regulation.
> 
> The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse, Tor, etc were all in effect, yet
> business and finance seemed to be the leaning and balancing interest
> of the hearing.
> 
> A couple statements regarding "anonymity can be catastrophic", 
> anonymity
> regulation, etc were made that were left open without further comment.
> 
> Al Gore created Bitcoin.
> 
> Bitcoin markets continued their rise after the hearing.
> 
> Add/Correct/Discuss.

From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 19 11:23:38 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 11:23:38 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <1384888401.10588.4.camel@anglachel>
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
 <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>
 <528AE4B2.9040103@lig.net> <1384888401.10588.4.camel@anglachel>
Message-ID: <349346FB-B31E-4D16-A4E7-61A983544B15@openbuddha.com>

Yes, he’s a precious celebrity.

On Nov 19, 2013, at 11:13 AM, Ted Smith  wrote:

> It's a forwarded message. It's copied to the list because it's relevant
> to the list, just like the discussion of the book's launch was relevant
> to the list, way back when all of the people complaining about posts
> from Jim Fucking Bell on the CYPHERPUNKS list weren't on said list.

Al Billings
albill at openbuddha.com
http://makehacklearn.org

From shelley at misanthropia.info  Tue Nov 19 13:02:14 2013
From: shelley at misanthropia.info (shelley at misanthropia.info)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:02:14 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <349346FB-B31E-4D16-A4E7-61A983544B15@openbuddha.com>
Message-ID: <20131119210217.2686AC00E83@frontend1.nyi.mail.srv.osa>

Al Billings wrote: 

>>Yes, he’s a precious celebrity.

No, we're talking about Jim Bell.  Not Assange.  

As Ted said, lurk more. 

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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 19 13:47:26 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:47:26 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
 <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>
 <528AE4B2.9040103@lig.net> <1384888401.10588.4.camel@anglachel>
 <349346FB-B31E-4D16-A4E7-61A983544B15@openbuddha.com>

Message-ID: 

Thanks for the BS, Josh. I was on the original cypherpunks list back in the day and have been on email lists since 1989 or so. Maybe I can explain to you how the Internet works.

That said, spam is spam and Bell’s personal problems are not something I give a shit about. I’m obviously not the only one. I know several people who have left this list recently due to the almost complete lack of signal to noise. Perhaps you embrace this though.

On Nov 19, 2013, at 12:19 PM, Joshua Case  wrote:

> Hey Al, 
> 
> You’ve got to have a pretty thick skin to be on a mailing list - sometimes people post several messages in a row that may be over your head,  in regards to people or events you have  no knowledge of, or just plain boring. In these cases it is best to just buddha-up - find your delete key and go with the flow. If you really can’t see why the members of this particular list might be interested this particular “celebrity’s” correspondence in this matter — if you truly have “no idea what it is about” — then perhaps you should save your comments until you do have some inkling of what’s going around you. Then you won’t appear petulant or uninformed when you wish to participate rationally at a later time. 
> 
> Good luck!

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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 19 13:48:05 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:48:05 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <20131119210217.2686AC00E83@frontend1.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
References: <20131119210217.2686AC00E83@frontend1.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
Message-ID: 

You seem to be confusing “I don’t give a shit about Jim” with “I have no idea who Jim is.”

On Nov 19, 2013, at 1:02 PM, ""   wrote:

> No, we're talking about Jim Bell.  Not Assange.  
> 
> As Ted said, lurk more. 

Al Billings
albill at openbuddha.com
http://makehacklearn.org

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From shelley at misanthropia.info  Tue Nov 19 13:58:26 2013
From: shelley at misanthropia.info (shelley at misanthropia.info)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:58:26 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: <20131119215830.E9AFF68018D@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>

Then just shut your fucking mouth and skip over messages you don't want to read instead of spamming the entire list with your ignorant bullshit.

 On Nov 19, 2013 1:48 PM, Al Billings <albill at openbuddha.com> wrote: 

You seem to be confusing “I don’t give a shit about Jim” with “I have no idea who Jim is.”
On Nov 19, 2013, at 1:02 PM, "" <shelley at misanthropia.info> <shelley at misanthropia.info> wrote:No, we're talking about Jim Bell.  Not Assange.  As Ted said, lurk more. 

Al Billings
albill at openbuddha.com
http://makehacklearn.org

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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 19 13:59:56 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:59:56 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <20131119215830.E9AFF68018D@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
References: <20131119215830.E9AFF68018D@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
Message-ID: <7B5EAF1E-62F0-4B6F-B28A-0335C957E2D0@openbuddha.com>

Why? This seems to be the list for personal spam.

On Nov 19, 2013, at 1:58 PM, ""   wrote:

> Then just shut your fucking mouth and skip over messages you don't want to read instead of spamming the entire list with your ignorant bullshit.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> On Nov 19, 2013 1:48 PM, Al Billings  wrote: 
> 
> You seem to be confusing “I don’t give a shit about Jim” with “I have no idea who Jim is.”
> 
> On Nov 19, 2013, at 1:02 PM, ""   wrote:
> 
>> No, we're talking about Jim Bell.  Not Assange.  
>> 
>> As Ted said, lurk more. 
> 
> Al Billings
> albill at openbuddha.com
> http://makehacklearn.org
> 

Al Billings
albill at openbuddha.com
http://makehacklearn.org

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From tedks at riseup.net  Tue Nov 19 11:13:21 2013
From: tedks at riseup.net (Ted Smith)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 14:13:21 -0500
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <528AE4B2.9040103@lig.net>
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
 <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>
 <528AE4B2.9040103@lig.net>
Message-ID: <1384888401.10588.4.camel@anglachel>

It's a forwarded message. It's copied to the list because it's relevant
to the list, just like the discussion of the book's launch was relevant
to the list, way back when all of the people complaining about posts
from Jim Fucking Bell on the CYPHERPUNKS list weren't on said list.

Lurk more.

On Mon, 2013-11-18 at 20:10 -0800, Stephen Williams wrote:
> I have no idea what this is about beyond what you say below, but off
> hand, you have libeled everyone else on this mailing list by the
> statement in the subject of these messages:
> 
> "Your errors about me in your book."  I can assure you that I made no
> errors about you in my book.  Rather than the apparent royal you,
> perhaps you could be more specific and careful next time.
> 
> Good day sir.
> 
> On 11/18/13 3:18 PM, Al Billings wrote:
> 
> > It sounds very important to you and spam to the rest of us. 
> > 
> > On Nov 18, 2013, at 3:12 PM, Jim Bell  wrote:
> > 
> > > Then don't read the message, Al.  The reality is that Greenberg
> > > wrote a very prominent book, which effectively libeled me on the
> > > subject of events which are related to Cypherpunks.  I think that
> > > the readers of this list will want to know that, about Mr.
> > > Greenberg, and in the future they will want to see what he does
> > > about it.
> > >            Jim Bell
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > __________________________________________________________________
> > > From: Al Billings 
> > > To: Jim Bell  
> > > Cc: Andrew Greenberg ;
> > > "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
> > > Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 3:04 PM
> > > Subject: Re: Your errors about me in your book.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Why are we being spammed with this? I don’t care about your
> > > lawyers or books with you in them.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Al Billings
> > > albill at openbuddha.com
> > > http://makehacklearn.org 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > Al Billings
> > albill at openbuddha.com
> > http://makehacklearn.org 
> > 
> > 
> 
> sdw
> 

-- 
Sent from Ubuntu
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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 19 14:27:34 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 14:27:34 -0800
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <1636372.6HZlWtvCPQ@lap>
References: <20131119215830.E9AFF68018D@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
 <7B5EAF1E-62F0-4B6F-B28A-0335C957E2D0@openbuddha.com>
 <1636372.6HZlWtvCPQ@lap>
Message-ID: <49BEE7F2-BF27-4ECC-900D-022FBA5D3B87@openbuddha.com>

Until tomorrow, when he does it again…and the next day…and the next day. He seems to feel this list is his fawning crowd of adoration that cares about his personal fights with whomever he is fighting this week.

I’m here because I care about crypto and security. I enjoy the posts of links to articles, videos, news items, or actual discussion of these issues but, seriously, this isn’t the Bell Fanclub, is it?

On Nov 19, 2013, at 2:21 PM, rysiek  wrote:

> So, I can understand your "WTF?", Al, but it's really the time to stop beating 
> this horse. It is dead. It has gone to meet its maker. It ceased to be. If it 
> hadn't been mailed to the list it would have been pushing up daisies.

Al Billings
albill at openbuddha.com
http://makehacklearn.org

From jya at pipeline.com  Tue Nov 19 11:56:29 2013
From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 14:56:29 -0500
Subject: 48 Minute Video of NSA DDIR John Inglis at NYU 19 November 2019
Message-ID: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ydkw4xgZ-Y&feature=c4-overview&list=UURwhQQfBNzjB-68PlIRRD9w

From jya at pipeline.com  Tue Nov 19 12:09:01 2013
From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:09:01 -0500
Subject: Assassination Markets Hyperbole
In-Reply-To: <1384888401.10588.4.camel@anglachel>
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
 <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>
 <528AE4B2.9040103@lig.net> <1384888401.10588.4.camel@anglachel>
Message-ID: 

Andy Greenberg continues the lurid Forbes pro-business
hyperbole of Assassination Markets (more investor oriented
than Politics).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/11/18/meet-the-assassination-market-creator-whos-crowdfunding-murder-with-bitcoins/

Wall Street loves this marketing murder shit, preferrably at global
warmaking scale.

"I am a crypto-anarchist," Sanjuro concludes. "We have a bright 
future ahead of us."

Sounds like Jeff Gordon redux.

From jwcase at gmail.com  Tue Nov 19 12:19:29 2013
From: jwcase at gmail.com (Joshua Case)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:19:29 -0500
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <349346FB-B31E-4D16-A4E7-61A983544B15@openbuddha.com>
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
 <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>
 <528AE4B2.9040103@lig.net> <1384888401.10588.4.camel@anglachel>
 <349346FB-B31E-4D16-A4E7-61A983544B15@openbuddha.com>
Message-ID: 

Hey Al, 

You’ve got to have a pretty thick skin to be on a mailing list - sometimes people post several messages in a row that may be over your head,  in regards to people or events you have  no knowledge of, or just plain boring. In these cases it is best to just buddha-up - find your delete key and go with the flow. If you really can’t see why the members of this particular list might be interested this particular “celebrity’s” correspondence in this matter — if you truly have “no idea what it is about” — then perhaps you should save your comments until you do have some inkling of what’s going around you. Then you won’t appear petulant or uninformed when you wish to participate rationally at a later time. 

Good luck!

On Nov 19, 2013, at 2:23 PM, Al Billings  wrote:

> Yes, he’s a precious celebrity.
> 
> On Nov 19, 2013, at 11:13 AM, Ted Smith  wrote:
> 
>> It's a forwarded message. It's copied to the list because it's relevant
>> to the list, just like the discussion of the book's launch was relevant
>> to the list, way back when all of the people complaining about posts
>> from Jim Fucking Bell on the CYPHERPUNKS list weren't on said list.
> 
> Al Billings
> albill at openbuddha.com
> http://makehacklearn.org
> 
> 

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From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Tue Nov 19 13:21:20 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:21:20 -0600
Subject: consciousness (urls)
Message-ID: 

[decades ago when a gradeschooler went on a museum tour of Glensheen
Mansion, located in Duluth, Minnesota. what amazed me was at that age was
the level of luxury achieved by the extremely wealthy, in comparison to
ordinary people. this was captured in a magnificent shower that had twenty
shower heads and body jets, in 1908 (potentially involving gold). this is
context for a recent 'typological' discovery when on Amazon, where these
kinds of shower arrays are now being sold as normal fixtures (example url
follows)...

shower panel
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Home-Improvement-Shower-Panels/zgbs/hi/6810472011

Glensheen Historic Estate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glensheen_Historic_Estate

what i think is interesting about this is how over time these values or
luxuries even, migrate towards the larger population, once-middleclass, and
that a level of opulence exists where ordinary people live like kings and
queens via these vary many details of conventional life. in that, you do
not need to be a baron to have 10 showerheads if that is a significant
priority yet it may be one of many and eventually establish itself as a new
standard for bathroom fixtures and so it can be tied to how it is valued,
its use, is it really better than a simpler solution. and under this is an
unrecognized issue of infrastructure, water ecosystems, regulatory
policies, water quality, and water conservation that cannot be disconnected
from the artifact as idea.  so too computers with powerplants and pollution
and energy wars, and so on.

it just surprised me to see this on Amazon after several decades, and
remembering how amazing that shower was of a wealthy person from
yesteryear, and now an approximation of that technology exists as another
choice for shoppers, more than a century later. and how it seemed to
indicate various parallels, yet how underlying factors may also not be
dealt with at the same time something appears as if progress when removed,
isolated from its context. in other words, perhaps it is like an electric
razor that had efficiency to replace a safety razor, yet today they are
sold with chemicals that need to be repurchased again and again to keep it
working (auto-cleaning cartridges) and thus a secondary 'blades'
requirement, more and more to keep the thing working, and it involves
additional effort to _manage the device. thus, what of televisions from CRT
to digital and increased bureaucracy or other technical issues related to
computers, making them less efficient or effective as tools, or more
involving time and energy to manage or configure settings. and thus, what
if there is hard water and not only one nozzle gets blocked, but eight, and
all need to be cleaned or replaced, etc. perhaps that is the essence of
friction-free purchasing without connectivity to other ecosystem issues. it
can be excluded from the analysis, the innovation occurring in some ways,
efficiency, while in others it may be a loss of function or additional
routine that is more trouble than its worth. so too, technology in general,
additional settings, versus artifacts and tools that actually work as they
are designed to and are exceptionally well functioning, removed of errors,
etc. who knows if the 'advanced options' of the shower panel are worth the
investment, though the question may be- do you need to be rich to keep up
with the eventual upkeep expenses, if not troubleshooting and maintenance.]

// "deep neural network" machine learning algorithm. regarding
// knowing what sound source to focus in on, wonder if gyroscope
// or accelerometer may help determine or preference directionality

Study reveals potential breakthrough in hearing technology
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-reveals-potential-breakthrough-technology.html

[quote]  "That means that hearing-impaired people who had the benefit of
this algorithm could hear better than students with no hearing loss," Healy
said.  [unquote]

(note: once read a remarkable statistic now forgotten regarding the
projected need for hearing aids in young adults due to mp3 players and
personal audio electronics, perhaps to include cellphones even, that was
resulting in hearing loss issues on a massive scale. in other words,
hearing aids are the future for entire generations, due to noise &
listening to loud music whether on headphones or at concerts with huge loud
amps, etc. guess when the musicians playing are themselves dealing with
hearing loss it might be considered a side-effect of the approach to
musical production even. though perhaps everything, TV, phone, traffic,
(now cannot even take a walk without having someone alone who is talking
out loud to themselves, only to realize they are using a cellphone involved
in a remote conversation. combine this with those who view screens while
walking outside, and a form of willful blindness and deafness appears to
exist as people move in private bubbles of reality).

[&] Loss: Is Loud Music Making Teens Deaf?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20014372-10391704.html

(note: this is an example of the statistics though what i remember included
examination of multiple generations, all having increased and severely
premature hearing loss specifically due to electronics and the noisy
environment, where nerve cells for hearing are being killed off via
sound-based activities; the irony that music 'listening' leads to loss of
hearing, etc.)

South Africa cemeteries to microchip tombstones
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-south-africa-cemeteries-microchip-tombstones.html

Broken windows theory // recontextualize with OS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

~Greenwaldian Theorem // a^2 + b^2 > c^2   (via digg)
http://wikibin.org/articles/greenwaldian-theorem.html

First-Ever Hyperspectral Photo of Auroras
http://petapixel.com/2012/12/01/first-ever-hyperspectral-photo-of-auroras/

' The NORUSCA II can switch between 41 different optical bands in a matter
of microseconds, allowing scientists to detect things in the atmosphere
based on their “light fingerprint.” '

[in-article link]

Researchers Turn an Ordinary Canon 5D Into a Hyperspectral Camera
http://petapixel.com/2011/12/19/researchers-turn-an-ordinary-canon-5d-into-a-hyperspectral-camera/

note: this last issue has potential relevance to solar astronomy, because
solar telescopes today using h-alpha filters (such as Coronado Solarscopes)
need to be tuned to one area of the sun, its surface or its edges, which
results in other regions becoming less focused. my question for this has
been if a holographic chamber could be made that can focus in multiple
'tuned regions' simultaneously and then merge them optically in a single
image that then is the basis for capturing images of the sun and its
activity. should be possible though a double focusing mechanism or another
approach with mirrors is likely required to allow for it.

// backgrounder; multidimensional hyperspectral 'data cubes', use  in
// astronomy, mining & geology, ecology, food processing, surveillance,

Hyperspectral imaging
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperspectral_imaging

[quote]  Hyperspectral sensors look at objects using a vast portion of the
electromagnetic spectrum. Certain objects leave unique 'fingerprints'
across the electromagnetic spectrum. These 'fingerprints' are known as
spectral signatures and enable identification of the materials that make up
a scanned object.  [endquote]

// property, boundaries of individual custom manufacture...

How A Geek Dad And His 3D Printer Aim To Liberate Legos  (digg)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/05/how-a-geek-dad-and-his-3d-printer-aim-to-liberate-legos/

     "A Lego spokesperson says the company has no problem with Levin and
Sims’ work but is keeping an eye out for printed objects that infringe on
its brand. Neither Hasbro nor any of the smaller companies that sell
construction toys responded to requests for comment. So far the pair
haven’t received a cease-and-desist letter."

(also, see comment regarding printer specs, feasibility)

interesting quote from article:  Personal Kill  (via digg)
http://www.themorningnews.org/gallery/personal-kill

[quote]   "BG/OS:  It seems that the military’s answer {to how should our
military train if not for these simulations?} is to invest in technology
that allows for more automated, remote-controlled units; surveillance; and
weapons like robots and drones in any imaginable form in order to avoid
human casualties on the side of the military and in order to control from
the distance. Next to other things, this also indicates an increasing
militarization of cities and public communities in general, because single
individuals are the target. But drone pilots get PTSD too, and war zones or
conflicts can’t be controlled by machines. Automation seems still to go
only so far and the distance of the flying eye can trigger the application
of violence much easier than the immediacy of human encounter." [endquote]

// parameters, boundaries, identity, ecosystems, shared consciousness.
// missing issues in neuro & computing:  understanding of perspective

A Neuroscientist’s Radical Theory of How Networks Become Conscious
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/christof-koch-panpsychism-consciousness/all/

[note: i had a computational model for achieving this through parallelism
of matched patterns, local-global computing to function beyond the capacity
of the human brain, all 'transistors' interconnected structurally, via
looping N-value logical evaluation into shared scaffolding that exists as
an ecological computation; concept of crystal ball computing.]

[note also: permeability of surveillance within todays bounded, finite PCs
could indicate a type of emergent consciousness that is surveillance, as
collective awareness or tending toward super- or supra-organism, yet again
bounded, constrained to few parameters vs. unleashing potential
interconnections, allowing that to govern, thus keeping it contained and
under control, to keep things in the existing paradigm, manageable by a
given ideology etc]

// consider the following headline....

iPad Mini displays fewer colors than does iPad Air, says report
Though it boasts a Retina display, the new iPad Mini is still stuck with
the same color palate found in the first edition, says Anandtech.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57612752-94/ipad-mini-displays-fewer-colors-than-does-ipad-air-says-report/

[to me there is something 'meta' about this that translates into a larger
framework. perhaps at its most abstract, how tools themselves are bounded
by the ideas held inside of them, and thus more and more speed of
processing may still be rely upon a particular limiting approach, even
while appearing as if an upgrade or greater functionality. so what if the
fundamentals are off or something is constrained. and how much of planned
obsolescence in manufacturing is based on similar techniques, if locked
CPUs or software or non-innovating product categories that could likely
include most everything electronic, if sustaining false or warped ideology]

Invisible Fields. Geographies of radio waves
http://issuu.com/actar/docs/invisiblefields

Astrophysicists tackle the Sun and one of physics' biggest unsolved problems
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-astrophysicists-tackle-sun-physics-biggest.html

"Scientists have proposed two main theories to explain why the temperature
of the gas in the corona, which lies above the solar surface, soars to over
1 million degrees Kelvin even though the surface of the sun is a relatively
cool 6,000 degrees. (The center of the sun is 15 million degrees.)"

--- colorshift examples  ---

test videos to document colorshift properties using LED color light and
different colored objects for a project that was canceled. these are overly
long and very boring though demonstrate certain principles that could be
useful. (basic research)

VIDEO:  juggling balls  (2:27)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t8z4gnvwjfdpsx7/P4270002.AVI

VIDEO:  juggling rings (4:51)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pq9qaszavqdgl2c/P4270003.AVI

VIDEO:  juggling clubs (3:28)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1v3on6t2g4p0346/P4270006.AVI

the bigger idea involved venn logic and various balloon colors as a way to
visualize a model of consciousness i was exploring via 'balloon octopii' to
translate ideas of pseudo-truth and of various limits (and processing of
concepts as molecules) and parameters. here are some of the octopus images.
i wanted to make a 'brain' of multiple colored balloons for each octopus,
having different venn color compositions, and then photograph them together
under the same color light, as if ~resonance of /shared patterning/ to
model this relation via thinking.

pT/T modeling (note: REG noisefield for emergent pattern match) A=A/B
https://www.dropbox.com/s/47icp2cxeu63fyn/ballooning%20ex15.jpg

octopii communicating within noisefield via shared/unshared patterns
https://www.dropbox.com/s/umakwtjv0pjm4y5/ballooning%20ex14.jpg

Platonic forms, ideas as molecules, tuned into as consciousness
https://www.dropbox.com/s/by6ix6rvgnfllj2/ballooning%20ex23.jpg

so here was the larger idea... looking at balloons (translucent, opaque,
and transparent) as set combinations that have various color-based
permutations based on their configuration. that this could be explored, the
videos here only tests, first steps never developed further.

VIDEO:  venn balloons and colorshift test  (3:00)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vkm8fno5oki6u8x/P5020007.AVI

VIDEO:  venn balloons and colorshift tests  (3:43)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cfwttfhq1g9bivu/P5020010.AVI

VIDEO:  venn balloons and colorshift tests  (4:16)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j0bsu4kisrte4e5/P5020012.AVI

VIDEO:  venn balloons and colorshift tests  (0:42)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/81qdyvffejtuht3/P5020013.AVI

two things to note: as mentioned, the venn issue and set theory, and
ultimately experiments for balloon-in-balloon experiments (red balloon
_nested inside blue balloon, then illuminate with various color sequences)
as this relates to balloon-by-balloon dynamics (overlapping of colors, even
picking up of colors by transparent balloons or tinge or color-casting).
 -and- also, the molecular aspect as if electron-tunnel microscopy or some
other device looking at atomic formations at some level of abstraction. so
the balloons were also going to be explored for these molecular forms (none
of that in these images, though it is a natural attribute of latex balloons
(tap the maple tree -> maple syrup, tap the rubber tree --> latex for
balloons).

VIDEO: crude molecule test, failed to capture effect  (5:21)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eu51e87ucmqfcea/P5020017.AVI

VIDEO:  colorshift multicolor thread patterns  (4:01)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dllf4vs5w8cmkjt/P5020003.AVI

: : :  text transformation  : : : (errata-scramble)

      nopqrstuvwxyz/     uodbɹsʇnʌʍxʎz/
      uobdɹsʇnʌʍxʎz      nodbj5fn^mxh2

      W vv   M ʌʌ
      M ʌʌ   W vv

    \/\/     /\/\     \/     /\     \//\/
    /\/\     \/\/     /\     \/     /\\/\

{educational fair-use of copyright, 2013}

 AU <---> FeS₂
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From wrightalexw at gmail.com  Tue Nov 19 12:44:05 2013
From: wrightalexw at gmail.com (alex wright)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:44:05 -0500
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1384474509.14308.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1384480885.88737.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384550789.26301.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1384815366.99303.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <84D8614D-1BB4-46C2-8D78-DF17BB11CF68@openbuddha.com>
 <1384816356.47968.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <3CF37822-E60F-4476-B956-FAE37FD2A537@openbuddha.com>
 <528AE4B2.9040103@lig.net> <1384888401.10588.4.camel@anglachel>
 <349346FB-B31E-4D16-A4E7-61A983544B15@openbuddha.com>

Message-ID: 

Previously sent right to Joshua Case because ... I'm special...

I for one found it an interesting jump off point.  I didn't know much about
that episode before a few previous posts.  If the lines are too narrow this
is just a terribly formatted RSS feed.

On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 3:40 PM, alex wright  wrote:

> I for one found it an interesting jump off point.  I didn't know much
> about that episode before a few previous posts.  If the lines are too
> narrow this is just a terribly formatted RSS feed.
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 3:19 PM, Joshua Case  wrote:
>
>> Hey Al,
>>
>> You’ve got to have a pretty thick skin to be on a mailing list -
>> sometimes people post *several *messages in a row that may be over your
>> head,  in regards to people or events you have  no knowledge of, or just
>> plain boring. In these cases it is best to just buddha-up - find your
>> delete key and go with the flow. If you really can’t see why the members of
>> this particular list might be interested this *particular* “celebrity’s”
>> correspondence in this matter — if you truly have “no idea what it is
>> about” — then perhaps you should save your comments until you do have some
>> inkling of what’s going around you. Then you won’t appear petulant or
>> uninformed when you wish to participate rationally at a later time.
>>
>> Good luck!
>>
>>
>> On Nov 19, 2013, at 2:23 PM, Al Billings  wrote:
>>
>> Yes, he’s a precious celebrity.
>>
>> On Nov 19, 2013, at 11:13 AM, Ted Smith  wrote:
>>
>> It's a forwarded message. It's copied to the list because it's relevant
>> to the list, just like the discussion of the book's launch was relevant
>> to the list, way back when all of the people complaining about posts
>> from Jim Fucking Bell on the CYPHERPUNKS list weren't on said list.
>>
>>
>> Al Billings
>> albill at openbuddha.com
>> http://makehacklearn.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> "On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into
> the
> machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able
> rightly
> to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a
> question."
>
> -Charles Babbage, 19th century English mathematician, philosopher, inventor
> and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable
> computer.
>
>

-- 
"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the
machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able
rightly
to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a
question."

-Charles Babbage, 19th century English mathematician, philosopher, inventor
and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable
computer.
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From jamesd at echeque.com  Mon Nov 18 22:13:46 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:13:46 +1000
Subject: RetroShare
In-Reply-To: <20131118134618.73f0092d@Neptune>
References: <2273118.NEfOTMQzUT@lap> <11446519.UaTmSoLtO9@lap>

 <1892324.eEEYb6oia5@lap> <20131117234414.0e52405e@Neptune>

 <20131118134618.73f0092d@Neptune>
Message-ID: <528B019A.5040501@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-18 23:46, Cathal Garvey wrote:
> Well, the DHT is (if I recall correctly!) used not only for locating
> peers for but locating files. So, for example imagine the case where an
> update to Retroshare is offered from within the network: the retroshare
> devs themselves estimated that to forge a malicious hash would take
> weeks on consumer end hardware, and therefore that it was an
> impractical attack not worthy of threat modelling.
>
> Leaving aside the fact that your real adversary does *not have to
> constrain itself to consumer end hardware*, it's the first time I've
> encountered a "serious" crypto project that considers *weeks* to be
> "computationally infeasible".
>
> This is all ignoring the fact that SHA1 was built by the NSA.
> Specifically (correct me if I'm mistaken): SHA0 was based on MD5, and
> SHA1 was then proposed soon after as its replacement by the NSA after
> some alterations to correct *undisclosed vulnerabilities*. Ahem.
>
> So, AFAIK RS is using a hash function redesigned (for all intents and
> purposes) in secret by *the adversary* which has plenty of publicly
> known attacks and may well have a critical in-built attack, and relies
> on this hash to route to the correct file or peer.
>
> Once you have a peer's keys, you can keep them and trust-on-first-use,
> and RS *probably* (anyone wanna check source?) uses and checks
> signatures thereafter, but if the signatures are based on a SHA1 hash
> you're back to square one, where a forged hash will fit a valid
> signature.

In view of recent events, I am inclined to distrust SHA1, and even if 
SHA1 is entirely trustworthy, using it gives NIST and thus the NSA power 
which it will abuse, and even if one doubts that the use of NIST 
approved algorithms in one's own project gives the NSA power, or doubts 
that the NSA will abuse that power, using NIST approved algorithms on 
default settings gives people reason to suspect that the group, 
individual, or organization setting those defaults might play footsie 
with the NSA behind closed doors.

For this reason I recommend employing the symmetric algorithms set as 
defaults by Jon Callas, and the asymmetric algorithms of Daniel Bernstein.

Skein in place of SHA.

http://blog.jim.com/crypto/moving-away-from-nist.html
http://blog.jim.com/crypto/cryptography-standards.html

From griffin at cryptolab.net  Tue Nov 19 14:15:49 2013
From: griffin at cryptolab.net (Griffin Boyce)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 17:15:49 -0500
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <7B5EAF1E-62F0-4B6F-B28A-0335C957E2D0@openbuddha.com>
References: <20131119215830.E9AFF68018D@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
 <7B5EAF1E-62F0-4B6F-B28A-0335C957E2D0@openbuddha.com>
Message-ID: <528BE315.8020107@cryptolab.net>

But... but... I have an axe to grind, and need a public outlet to do so!
Because of reasons!

Al Billings wrote:
> Why? This seems to be the list for personal spam.
>
> On Nov 19, 2013, at 1:58 PM, ""  >  > wrote:
>
>
>> Then just shut your fucking mouth and skip over messages you don't
>> want to read instead of spamming the entire list with your ignorant
>> bullshit.

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Tue Nov 19 22:33:59 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 22:33:59 -0800 (PST)
Subject: dual-use (urls)
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <1384929239.37204.YahooMailNeo@web141202.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

From: brian carroll 

To: cypherpunks at cpunks.org 
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:01 PM
Subject: dual-use (urls)

>Shocking Medical Devices From Another Century (via digg)
>http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/bakken-museum/?viewall=true

>[&] The Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life
>http://www.thebakken.org/

    In 1978, I visited the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC for the first (and so far, only) time.  They had a display of "quack medical devices", that included a high-voltage AC device attached to glowing neon-bulb-type tubes.  The idea was that these tubes would be pressed against a person's flesh, thus capacitively coupled through the glass, including a glowing light within the tube,  and inducing a mild electrical current.  At the time, I accepted the idea that this was, indeed, an example of a "quack medical device".
   In 1996, I began work at a Vancouver Washington contract-electronic-design/manufacturer firm.  One of the major products that this company made were "TENS" devices.  (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulators   http://www.tensunits.com/   ).   They were/are intended to reduce chronic pain.  They worked in pretty much the same way that those "quack" early 1900's devices worked:  Cause a AC small current to flow within flesh.  What was thought to be 'quack' in 1978, turned out to not be 'quack' at all!
       Jim Bell
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From rysiek at hackerspace.pl  Tue Nov 19 13:50:49 2013
From: rysiek at hackerspace.pl (rysiek)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 22:50:49 +0100
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <20131119210217.2686AC00E83@frontend1.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
References: <20131119210217.2686AC00E83@frontend1.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
Message-ID: <4604225.odN929v0sU@lap>

Dnia wtorek, 19 listopada 2013 13:02:14 shelley at misanthropia.info pisze:
> Al Billings wrote:
> 
> >> Yes, he’s a precious celebrity.
> 
> No, we're talking about Jim Bell.

Apparently this name does not ring a bell with some.
/rimshot/

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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From rysiek at hackerspace.pl  Tue Nov 19 14:21:10 2013
From: rysiek at hackerspace.pl (rysiek)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 23:21:10 +0100
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <7B5EAF1E-62F0-4B6F-B28A-0335C957E2D0@openbuddha.com>
References: <20131119215830.E9AFF68018D@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
 <7B5EAF1E-62F0-4B6F-B28A-0335C957E2D0@openbuddha.com>
Message-ID: <1636372.6HZlWtvCPQ@lap>

Dnia wtorek, 19 listopada 2013 13:59:56 Al Billings pisze:
> Why? This seems to be the list for personal spam.

Apparently, however -- and I say it with utmost respect, while being a newbie 
here -- not for *your* personal spam.

>From a newbie's perspective: when I joined, I had no idea who Jim Bell is, and 
had no idea this list has had such a long and colourful history. While for the 
time being I "tl;dr'd" the bulk of the e-mail that has started this thread, I 
intend on reading it in full soon-ish, as "those who do not know history are 
bound to repeat it".

I now do appreciate the long history behind his e-mail, and regardless of 
whether or not I personally am interested in what Jim has to say, I recognize 
he has the right to say it. Adding a [HISTORY] or somesuch tag would be a nice 
touch, but that's that.

I have no idea what makes a person think they can summarily decide "this is 
irrelevant to the list" and insist upon it for so long, after so many 
responses that seem to indicate otherwise.

I myself had a "WTF?" moment with Jim's e-mail, but I shrugged my shoulders 
and moved to the next e-mail. I don't have to read everything, after all, and 
I can operate the "mark as read" functionality of my e-mail client pretty 
well.

So, I can understand your "WTF?", Al, but it's really the time to stop beating 
this horse. It is dead. It has gone to meet its maker. It ceased to be. If it 
hadn't been mailed to the list it would have been pushing up daisies.

This is a dead horse.

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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From rysiek at hackerspace.pl  Tue Nov 19 14:31:57 2013
From: rysiek at hackerspace.pl (rysiek)
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 23:31:57 +0100
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <49BEE7F2-BF27-4ECC-900D-022FBA5D3B87@openbuddha.com>
References: <20131119215830.E9AFF68018D@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
 <1636372.6HZlWtvCPQ@lap>
 <49BEE7F2-BF27-4ECC-900D-022FBA5D3B87@openbuddha.com>
Message-ID: <2330799.oyT804uiHl@lap>

Dnia wtorek, 19 listopada 2013 14:27:34 Al Billings pisze:
> Until tomorrow, when he does it again…and the next day…and the next day. He
> seems to feel this list is his fawning crowd of adoration that cares about
> his personal fights with whomever he is fighting this week.

Add him to a killfile and be done with it, then?

> I’m here because I care about crypto and security. I enjoy the posts of
> links to articles, videos, news items, or actual discussion of these issues

Great, so am I. I also tend to enjoy some historical perspective from time to 
time. When I do not feel like it, I simply skip the relevant e-mails.

> but, seriously, this isn’t the Bell Fanclub, is it?

I don't know and I don't care. Even if you consider Jim's postings to be noise 
(I don't), the signal-to-noise ratio here is very high, isn't it? So let's 
just all get on with our lives, and leave this unnecessary drama behind, eh?

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Tue Nov 19 22:01:36 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 00:01:36 -0600
Subject: dual-use (urls)
Message-ID: 

(note: several of videos from preceding urls-list were deleted,
thus links broken, due to reaching max upload limit at dropbox)

Vancouver’s ban on the humble doorknob likely to be a trendsetter (via digg)
http://www.vancouversun.com/story.html?id=9173543

[quote] Vancouver is the only city in Canada with its own building code, so
the changes made here are often chased into the B.C. Building Code and
Canada’s National Building Code, and then put into practice in cities and
towns across Canada. Vancouver’s influence is wide. And as go the codes, so
too goes the construction industry. [unquote]

// dual-use therapy equipment, can also be used to torture people...
// brute force behavioral engineering, physio & neuro programming,
// note: resonance-based "treatments" occur at a distance, vibrations

Shocking Medical Devices From Another Century (via digg)
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/bakken-museum/?viewall=true

[&] The Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life
http://www.thebakken.org/

US NAVY: Hackers 'Jumping The Air Gap' Would 'Disrupt The World Balance Of
Power'
http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-acoustic-hackers-could-halt-fleets-2013-11#ixzz2l9wcmi5X

""The ships are floating SCADA systems," Hagerott said, making reference to
the same highly vulnerable Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition
networks that run utilities in America..."  (via drudgereport)

// ultrasonic neuromodulation and electromagnetic incarceration...
// descriptions of effects are accurate in my experience. this is it,
// except it can also be local, on-site, directed energy equipment
// & structurally involves political psychiatry/psychology practices.

U.S. SILENTLY TORTURES AMERICANS WITH CELL TOWER ELECTROMAGNETIC
NEUROWEAPON
(link from comments in url above)
http://viclivingston.blogspot.com/2011/12/u.html

[quote]  Each day, a nationwide scalar electromagnetic radiation
"multifunctional" radio frequency directed energy weapon attack system
employing phased array cell tower antenna transmitter/receivers and GPS
satellites, under the administration of U.S. Cyber Command and military
contractor Lockheed Martin, is used to silently and invisibly torture,
impair, subjugate, and degrade the physical and neurological health of
untold thousands of American citizens who have been extrajudicially
"targeted" by a hate- and ideology-driven domestic "disposition matrix" as
"dissidents" or "undesirables." [unquote]

. . . . : : :  films & videos  : : : . . . .

Resonance Beings of Frequency documentary film  | 2013, online 1:28min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV9dhGv_tTs

Full Signal - 52 minute documentary - trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdZSczgtK9o

Genre: Documentary | Run Time: 61 minutes | Release: June 2010
http://fullsignalmovie.com/

Full Signal reviews at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Full-Signal-Hidden-Cost-Phones/product-reviews/B00427VBVO/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Safe (1995 film) -- Julianne Moore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_%281995_film%29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59cHP4jkr-Y

{educational fair-use of copyright, 2013}

☢ ☤ ☣
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From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Tue Nov 19 23:47:59 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 01:47:59 -0600
Subject: dual-use (urls)
In-Reply-To: <1384929239.37204.YahooMailNeo@web141202.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: 
 <1384929239.37204.YahooMailNeo@web141202.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

Interesting. also, like how phrenology was discredited yet when
recontextualized via neuroimaging it seems a similar paradigm, just
different territory and cartography.

noting for completeness: connection of TENS and other such electronic
devices with kinky sex culture...

Erotic electrostimulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_electrostimulation

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices is also in town here...
http://www.museumofquackery.com/

all of this reminds me of Alvin Toffler, (perhaps book Futureshock) who
advised taking company tours such as of manufacturing facilities to learn
how industry ecosystems function as another route to education, literacy,
learning. there is a quackery devices, Bakken, and also a broadcast museum
in town, though the advice extends towards visiting old mines, e.g. (MINOS
Detecter) [0] or other facilities. in Berkeley i had a tour of their
participle accelerator, fascinating to learn that a particle can be
suspended by magnets, held in a stationary position prior to being merged
with the other accelerating beam, or perhaps for being smashed into, i
forget. though in a security-paranoid environment even these basic
pleasures of learning seem off-limits in terms of ideas, on lock-down
potentially, perhaps most so the threat of reinterpretation challenging
ruling ideology. like every observer is a security threat and social
relations and ideas tunneling inside that.

[0] http://www.hep.umn.edu/minos/overview/

On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 12:33 AM, Jim Bell  wrote:

> *From:* brian carroll 
>  *To:* cypherpunks at cpunks.org
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:01 PM
> *Subject:* dual-use (urls)
>
> >Shocking Medical Devices From Another Century (via digg)
> >http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/bakken-museum/?viewall=true
>
> >[&] The Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life
> >http://www.thebakken.org/ 
>
>     In 1978, I visited the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC for
> the first (and so far, only) time.  They had a display of "quack medical
> devices", that included a high-voltage AC device attached to glowing
> neon-bulb-type tubes.  The idea was that these tubes would be pressed
> against a person's flesh, thus capacitively coupled through the glass,
> including a glowing light within the tube,  and inducing a mild electrical
> current.  At the time, I accepted the idea that this was, indeed, an
> example of a "quack medical device".
>    In 1996, I began work at a Vancouver Washington
> contract-electronic-design/manufacturer firm.  One of the major products
> that this company made were "TENS" devices.  (Transcutaneous Electrical
> Nerve Stimulators   http://www.tensunits.com/    ).   They
> were/are intended to reduce chronic pain.  They worked in pretty much the
> same way that those "quack" early 1900's devices worked:  Cause a AC small
> current to flow within flesh.  What was thought to be 'quack' in 1978,
> turned out to not be 'quack' at all!
>        Jim Bell
>
>
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From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Wed Nov 20 00:03:31 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 02:03:31 -0600
Subject: control (urls)
Message-ID: 

An unconventional car: No engine, no transmission, no differential
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-unconventional-car-transmission-differential.html

"Without {onboard computer motion control}, the car is quite difficult to
drive because the wheels are not coordinated," says the National Science
Foundation (NSF)-funded researcher, who also directs the university's
vehicle systems and control laboratory. "You feel like you are driving
something uncontrollable. You could flip over, or travel along an undesired
path, or cause a crash. But when the 'controller' is active, based on
feedback loops, the vehicle motion can be controlled, just as the driver
expects."

Powerline: The First Battle of America's Energy War
by Paul Wellstone  // murdered in plane crash
http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780816643844

"The inspiring story of a grassroots rebellion. Powerline describes the
opposition of rural Minnesotans to the building of a high voltage powerline
across 430 miles of farmland from central North Dakota to the Twin Cities
suburbs. Convinced that the safety of their families and the health of
their land was disregarded in favor of the gluttonous energy consumption of
cities, the farmer-led prairie revolt began as questioning and escalated to
rampant civil disobedience, peaking in 1978 when nearly half of Minnesota's
state highway patrol was engaged in stopping sabotage of the project. After
construction was completed, the powerline proved difficult to defend and
unprecedented guerrilla warfare brought many towers to the ground (due to
"bolt weevils"). Through pulse-quickening personal interviews and
big-picture analysis, Powerline lays bare the latent and unexpected power
of the people of rural America--and resonates strongly with today's energy
debates."

{educational fair-use of copyright, 2013}

༜ Я ץ
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From juan.g71 at gmail.com  Tue Nov 19 22:43:10 2013
From: juan.g71 at gmail.com (Juan Garofalo)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 03:43:10 -0300
Subject: dual-use (urls)
In-Reply-To: <1384929239.37204.YahooMailNeo@web141202.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: 
 <1384929239.37204.YahooMailNeo@web141202.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

--On Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:33 PM -0800 Jim Bell
 wrote:

> From: brian carroll 
> 
> To: cypherpunks at cpunks.org 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:01 PM
> Subject: dual-use (urls)
>  
> 
> 
>> Shocking Medical Devices From Another Century (via digg)
>> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/bakken-museum/?viewall=true
> 
>> [&] The Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life
>> http://www.thebakken.org/
> 
>     In 1978, I visited the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC
> for the first (and so far, only) time.  They had a display of "quack
> medical devices", that included a high-voltage AC device attached to
> glowing neon-bulb-type tubes.  The idea was that these tubes would be
> pressed against a person's flesh, thus capacitively coupled through the
> glass, including a glowing light within the tube,  and inducing a mild
> electrical current.  At the time, I accepted the idea that this was,
> indeed, an example of a "quack medical device".    In 1996, I began
> work at a Vancouver Washington contract-electronic-design/manufacturer
> firm.  One of the major products that this company made were "TENS"
> devices.  (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulators  
> http://www.tensunits.com/   ).   They were/are intended to reduce
> chronic pain.  They worked in pretty much the same way that those
> "quack" early 1900's devices worked:  Cause a AC small current to flow
> within flesh.  What was thought to be 'quack' in 1978, turned out to not
> be 'quack' at all!       

	Or rather, what was quack in 1900 is stil quack today.

	When did the Great Scientists of the Great Medical Community stop
lobotomizing homosexuals? Oh, but the 'science' of psychiarty isn't
quackery at all...

J.

> Jim Bell 

From dan at geer.org  Wed Nov 20 05:44:09 2013
From: dan at geer.org (dan at geer.org)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 08:44:09 -0500
Subject: US Senate Virtual Currency Hearing Summary
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 18 Nov 2013 19:47:02 EST."

Message-ID: <20131120134409.7F1CE228234@palinka.tinho.net>

 > Add/Correct/Discuss.

The Senate is nearly irrelevant.  It is the regulatory bodies
that matter.  While Congressional members cannot be bothered
even to read the 1,000 page bills they pass, in the meantime
the regulations to implement them are beyond reading -- like
the Obamacare regs that are 30x as long as law itself.

As a cogent, current, and contemptible example directly relevant
to the practice of planning for unexpected events and all that
that entails, see how the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
is destroying prediction markets including non-U.S. ones.

--dan

Neca eos omnes.  Deus suos agnoscet.

From l at odewijk.nl  Wed Nov 20 01:23:29 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 10:23:29 +0100
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <49BEE7F2-BF27-4ECC-900D-022FBA5D3B87@openbuddha.com>
References: <20131119215830.E9AFF68018D@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
 <7B5EAF1E-62F0-4B6F-B28A-0335C957E2D0@openbuddha.com> <1636372.6HZlWtvCPQ@lap>
 <49BEE7F2-BF27-4ECC-900D-022FBA5D3B87@openbuddha.com>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/19 Al Billings 

> I’m here because I care about crypto and security. I enjoy the posts of
> links to articles, videos, news items, or actual discussion of these issues
> but, seriously, this isn’t the Bell Fanclub, is it?

Seems he didn't get (or really *get*) my mail about cryptography in no
vacuum.
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From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Wed Nov 20 13:34:54 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 13:34:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: MEDIA RELEASE: Family of alleged Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht
 launches legal defense fund
In-Reply-To: <528D233B.7010707@gogulski.com>
References: <528D233B.7010707@gogulski.com>
Message-ID: <1384983294.82223.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

BTW, I'm not accusing this material of being 'spam', the way some of my posts on Cypherpunks are being labeled by a few.  In fact, I really think this kind of thing should be posted here. (cypherpunks at cpunks.org).   But, other than the fact that Silk Road used Tor, and thus onion routing, why would my situation and cases be any less appropriate of comment than Ulbricht's situation?   I realize that there are probably going to be some pro-government shills who simply don't like what I did, and some of them have and will continue to speak up.  But we should all be willing to pay attention to the illegal means with which government(s) promotes its interests.  Particularly with Snowden's massively-important disclosures about the USG's clearly-illegal surveillance activities, it is quite clear that the Federal government has decided to treat these kinds of disputes as if they were a 'war', and to use war-like tactics on civilians.  
I fully expect that similar illegal activities will be used against this 'Sanjuro' guy.   Google 'Assassination Market Sanjuro'.
        Jim Bell  (Veteran and one of the first POW's of the Crypto War)

________________________________
 From: Mike Gogulski 
To: Progressbar General Discussion ; "c4ss at googlegroups.com" ; System undo crew ; "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" ; PT-Refuge at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 1:01 PM
Subject: MEDIA RELEASE:  Family of alleged Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht launches legal defense fund

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Defense Fund Launched for Ross Ulbricht, Accused Silk Road Marketplace Operator

New York, NY, November 20, 2013 – The family of the man accused by the US government of operating the Silk Road online marketplace has launched a fund for donations to their son's legal defense.

Ross Ulbricht, 29, was arrested on October 1st and charged with creating and operating the web marketplace Silk Road, under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts”. The allegations include a variety of conspiracies, including narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering, as well as planned acts of violence. Ulbricht denied all charges in federal court in San Francisco in October. He will appear at a bail hearing at the United States District Court, Southern District of New York at 11:00 am EST on Thursday, November 21.

On their website, the Ulbricht family states: “Our goal is to provide Ross with what every American citizen is promised: a fair trial. In the USA we are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We firmly believe in Ross’s innocence and are working hard with the best legal team to prove it.”

The family has retained New York-based attorney Joshua L. Dratel to defend their son in court. Mr. Dratel stated: “It is crucial that we have a level playing field for defending Ross, and that requires resources from the communities that support him.”

The Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC is a Wyoming-based corporation established by the Ulbricht family. All donations are used solely to pay attorney fees, fund accounting fees and ancillary legal expenses.

###

SOURCE: Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC, www.freeross.org

CONTACTS:

Joshua L. Dratel
Joshua L. Dratel, P.C.
29 Broadway, Suite 1412
New York, New York 10006
United States of America
jdratel at joshuadratel.com
Office: +1 212 732 0707
Fax: +1 212 571 3792
www.nycriminallawfirm.com

Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC
www.freeross.org
freerossulbricht at gmail.com
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From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Wed Nov 20 16:40:09 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 16:40:09 -0800 (PST)
Subject: MEDIA RELEASE: Family of alleged Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht
 launches legal defense fund
In-Reply-To: <528D3A75.8000707@gogulski.com>
References: <528D233B.7010707@gogulski.com>
 <1384983294.82223.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <528D3A75.8000707@gogulski.com>
Message-ID: <1384994409.95249.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Please understand that I wasn't picking on your item.  I had seen a bunch of flack in the last few days, from people who should have known better, braying about my postings concerning government misbehavior.  I knew that nobody would object to your posting (quite correctly!), and I took the opportunity to compare these two examples.  The peanut-gallery needs to learn that the Cypherpunks list covers not merely encryption, but issues somewhat collateral (including political) to that matter.  The reason the 'shills' object to _my_ commentary concerning my history is that there is no longer any upside for the government, and in fact there is potentially a huge downside due to past government corruption that has virtually never been covered here.  (to my knowledge; until March 2012 I lived in a 'gated community'.  )  In contrast, as of right now in the Ross Ulbricht situation, the government can 'ride in on a white horse', pretending to save
 the day from evil drug-dealers.  No downside for the government (at least not yet), and so the shills remain quiet.
       Jim Bell

________________________________
 From: Mike Gogulski 
To: Jim Bell ; "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 2:40 PM
Subject: Re: MEDIA RELEASE:  Family of alleged Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht launches legal defense fund

Thanks, Jim. And I've never seen your posts as spam.

Peace,
Mike

On 11/20/2013 10:34 PM, Jim Bell wrote:
> BTW, I'm not accusing this material of being 'spam', the way some of
> my posts on Cypherpunks are being labeled by a few.  In fact, I really
> think this kind of thing should be posted here.
> (cypherpunks at cpunks.org).   But, other than the fact that Silk Road
> used Tor, and thus onion routing, why would my situation and cases be
> any less appropriate of comment than Ulbricht's situation?   I realize
> that there are probably going to be some pro-government shills who
> simply don't like what I did, and some of them have and will continue
> to speak up.  But we should all be willing to pay attention to the
> illegal means with which government(s) promotes its interests. 
> Particularly with Snowden's massively-important disclosures about the
> USG's clearly-illegal surveillance activities, it is quite clear that
> the Federal government has decided to treat these kinds of disputes as
> if they were a 'war', and to use war-like tactics on civilians. 
> I fully expect that similar illegal activities will be used against
> this 'Sanjuro' guy.   Google 'Assassination Market Sanjuro'.
>         Jim Bell  (Veteran and one of the first POW's of the Crypto War)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Mike Gogulski 
> *To:* Progressbar General Discussion
> ; "c4ss at googlegroups.com"
> ; System undo crew ;
> "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" ;
> PT-Refuge at yahoogroups.com
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 20, 2013 1:01 PM
> *Subject:* MEDIA RELEASE: Family of alleged Silk Road operator Ross
> Ulbricht launches legal defense fund
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> Defense Fund Launched for Ross Ulbricht, Accused Silk Road Marketplace
> Operator
>
> New York, NY, November 20, 2013 – The family of the man accused by the
> US government of operating the Silk Road online marketplace has
> launched a fund for donations to their son's legal defense.
>
> Ross Ulbricht, 29, was arrested on October 1st and charged with
> creating and operating the web marketplace Silk Road, under the
> pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts”. The allegations include a variety of
> conspiracies, including narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and
> money laundering, as well as planned acts of violence. Ulbricht denied
> all charges in federal court in San Francisco in October. He will
> appear at a bail hearing at the United States District Court, Southern
> District of New York at 11:00 am EST on Thursday, November 21.
>
> On their website, the Ulbricht family states: “Our goal is to provide
> Ross with what every American citizen is promised: a fair trial. In
> the USA we are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a
> reasonable doubt. We firmly believe in Ross’s innocence and are
> working hard with the best legal team to prove it.”
>
> The family has retained New York-based attorney Joshua L. Dratel to
> defend their son in court. Mr. Dratel stated: “It is crucial that we
> have a level playing field for defending Ross, and that requires
> resources from the communities that support him.”
>
> The Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC is a Wyoming-based
> corporation established by the Ulbricht family. All donations are used
> solely to pay attorney fees, fund accounting fees and ancillary legal
> expenses.
>
> ###
>
> SOURCE: Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC, www.freeross.org
>
> CONTACTS:
>
> Joshua L. Dratel
> Joshua L. Dratel, P.C.
> 29 Broadway, Suite 1412
> New York, New York 10006
> United States of America
> jdratel at joshuadratel.com 
> Office: +1 212 732 0707
> Fax: +1 212 571 3792
> www.nycriminallawfirm.com
>
> Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC
> www.freeross.org
> freerossulbricht at gmail.com 

>
>
>
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From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Wed Nov 20 08:41:21 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 16:41:21 +0000
Subject: Your errors about me in your book.
In-Reply-To: <2330799.oyT804uiHl@lap>
References: <20131119215830.E9AFF68018D@frontend2.nyi.mail.srv.osa>
 <1636372.6HZlWtvCPQ@lap>
 <49BEE7F2-BF27-4ECC-900D-022FBA5D3B87@openbuddha.com>
 <2330799.oyT804uiHl@lap>
Message-ID: <20131120164121.2b1eb307@Neptune>

+1 for adding an email filter and getting on with life.

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 23:31:57 +0100
rysiek  wrote:

> Dnia wtorek, 19 listopada 2013 14:27:34 Al Billings pisze:
> > Until tomorrow, when he does it again…and the next day…and the next
> > day. He seems to feel this list is his fawning crowd of adoration
> > that cares about his personal fights with whomever he is fighting
> > this week.
> 
> Add him to a killfile and be done with it, then?
> 
> > I’m here because I care about crypto and security. I enjoy the
> > posts of links to articles, videos, news items, or actual
> > discussion of these issues
> 
> Great, so am I. I also tend to enjoy some historical perspective from
> time to time. When I do not feel like it, I simply skip the relevant
> e-mails.
> 
> > but, seriously, this isn’t the Bell Fanclub, is it?
> 
> I don't know and I don't care. Even if you consider Jim's postings to
> be noise (I don't), the signal-to-noise ratio here is very high,
> isn't it? So let's just all get on with our lives, and leave this
> unnecessary drama behind, eh?
> 

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From mike at gogulski.com  Wed Nov 20 13:01:47 2013
From: mike at gogulski.com (Mike Gogulski)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 22:01:47 +0100
Subject: MEDIA RELEASE:  Family of alleged Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht
 launches legal defense fund
Message-ID: <528D233B.7010707@gogulski.com>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Defense Fund Launched for Ross Ulbricht, Accused Silk Road Marketplace Operator

New York, NY, November 20, 2013 – The family of the man accused by the US government of operating the Silk Road online marketplace has launched a fund for donations to their son's legal defense.

Ross Ulbricht, 29, was arrested on October 1st and charged with creating and operating the web marketplace Silk Road, under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts”. The allegations include a variety of conspiracies, including narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering, as well as planned acts of violence. Ulbricht denied all charges in federal court in San Francisco in October. He will appear at a bail hearing at the United States District Court, Southern District of New York at 11:00 am EST on Thursday, November 21.

On their website, the Ulbricht family states: “Our goal is to provide Ross with what every American citizen is promised: a fair trial. In the USA we are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We firmly believe in Ross’s innocence and are working hard with the best legal team to prove it.”

The family has retained New York-based attorney Joshua L. Dratel to defend their son in court. Mr. Dratel stated: “It is crucial that we have a level playing field for defending Ross, and that requires resources from the communities that support him.”

The Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC is a Wyoming-based corporation established by the Ulbricht family. All donations are used solely to pay attorney fees, fund accounting fees and ancillary legal expenses.

###

SOURCE: Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC, www.freeross.org

CONTACTS:

Joshua L. Dratel
Joshua L. Dratel, P.C.
29 Broadway, Suite 1412
New York, New York 10006
United States of America
jdratel at joshuadratel.com
Office: +1 212 732 0707
Fax: +1 212 571 3792
www.nycriminallawfirm.com

Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC
www.freeross.org
freerossulbricht at gmail.com

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From mike at gogulski.com  Wed Nov 20 14:40:53 2013
From: mike at gogulski.com (Mike Gogulski)
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 23:40:53 +0100
Subject: MEDIA RELEASE: Family of alleged Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht
 launches legal defense fund
In-Reply-To: <1384983294.82223.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <528D233B.7010707@gogulski.com>
 <1384983294.82223.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <528D3A75.8000707@gogulski.com>

Thanks, Jim. And I've never seen your posts as spam.

Peace,
Mike

On 11/20/2013 10:34 PM, Jim Bell wrote:
> BTW, I'm not accusing this material of being 'spam', the way some of
> my posts on Cypherpunks are being labeled by a few.  In fact, I really
> think this kind of thing should be posted here.
> (cypherpunks at cpunks.org).   But, other than the fact that Silk Road
> used Tor, and thus onion routing, why would my situation and cases be
> any less appropriate of comment than Ulbricht's situation?   I realize
> that there are probably going to be some pro-government shills who
> simply don't like what I did, and some of them have and will continue
> to speak up.  But we should all be willing to pay attention to the
> illegal means with which government(s) promotes its interests. 
> Particularly with Snowden's massively-important disclosures about the
> USG's clearly-illegal surveillance activities, it is quite clear that
> the Federal government has decided to treat these kinds of disputes as
> if they were a 'war', and to use war-like tactics on civilians. 
> I fully expect that similar illegal activities will be used against
> this 'Sanjuro' guy.   Google 'Assassination Market Sanjuro'.
>         Jim Bell  (Veteran and one of the first POW's of the Crypto War)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Mike Gogulski 
> *To:* Progressbar General Discussion
> ; "c4ss at googlegroups.com"
> ; System undo crew ;
> "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" ;
> PT-Refuge at yahoogroups.com
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 20, 2013 1:01 PM
> *Subject:* MEDIA RELEASE: Family of alleged Silk Road operator Ross
> Ulbricht launches legal defense fund
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> Defense Fund Launched for Ross Ulbricht, Accused Silk Road Marketplace
> Operator
>
> New York, NY, November 20, 2013 – The family of the man accused by the
> US government of operating the Silk Road online marketplace has
> launched a fund for donations to their son's legal defense.
>
> Ross Ulbricht, 29, was arrested on October 1st and charged with
> creating and operating the web marketplace Silk Road, under the
> pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts”. The allegations include a variety of
> conspiracies, including narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and
> money laundering, as well as planned acts of violence. Ulbricht denied
> all charges in federal court in San Francisco in October. He will
> appear at a bail hearing at the United States District Court, Southern
> District of New York at 11:00 am EST on Thursday, November 21.
>
> On their website, the Ulbricht family states: “Our goal is to provide
> Ross with what every American citizen is promised: a fair trial. In
> the USA we are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a
> reasonable doubt. We firmly believe in Ross’s innocence and are
> working hard with the best legal team to prove it.”
>
> The family has retained New York-based attorney Joshua L. Dratel to
> defend their son in court. Mr. Dratel stated: “It is crucial that we
> have a level playing field for defending Ross, and that requires
> resources from the communities that support him.”
>
> The Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC is a Wyoming-based
> corporation established by the Ulbricht family. All donations are used
> solely to pay attorney fees, fund accounting fees and ancillary legal
> expenses.
>
> ###
>
> SOURCE: Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC, www.freeross.org
>
> CONTACTS:
>
> Joshua L. Dratel
> Joshua L. Dratel, P.C.
> 29 Broadway, Suite 1412
> New York, New York 10006
> United States of America
> jdratel at joshuadratel.com 
> Office: +1 212 732 0707
> Fax: +1 212 571 3792
> www.nycriminallawfirm.com
>
> Ross Ulbricht Legal Defense Fund LLC
> www.freeross.org
> freerossulbricht at gmail.com 
>
>
>

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From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Thu Nov 21 00:18:04 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 02:18:04 -0600
Subject: light-signals (urls)
Message-ID: 

[viewed the last 20 minutes of this program, very interesting. about the
Schumann resonance and lighting, and 'the global electrical circuit'...]

NOVA: At the Edge of Space  (PBS science program)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/edge-of-space.html

// transient luminous events (TLEs) - sprites, blue jets, elves

[video]  Earth's Global Electric Circuit - Atmospheric Electricity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7-0YRiln7E

Global electric circuit and lightning
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/lis/lis_4/

Earle R. Williams -- Research Overview  (see Fig. 1a)
http://web.mit.edu/earlerw/www/Research.html

Global electric circuit model to help
scientists understand electricity in the air
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/10/global-electric-circuit-model-help-scientists-understand-electricity-air

[quote] “The next step is to incorporate the distribution of
thunderstorms,” Lucas said. “Currents generally travel upwards above
thunderstorms distributed around the equator and return down over the
poles, away from the thunderstorms. Part of the future work is going to be
determining what influence those thunderstorms have on the global system.”
[unquote]

--- crypto platforms ---

unknown if others relate to it this way, though i think DMX lighting
systems (somewhat like MIDI for lights, fog machines, electronic
billboards) has potential as a communications system beyond strobes and
laser projections, LED light patterns and various colors and special
effects (disco-ball to various atmospherics: water-like filters, shapes,
etc.

DMX512 standard for lighting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMX512

what is quite interesting about the existing technology besides the
potential for lasers, is fully automatic controlled lighting systems,
robotic or remotely servo-driven, that can be coordinated and synced with
other events. so, for instance, you could have 8 different LED lights
around a perimeter that on cue could together reorient themselves and shine
different colors on a central object, though that involves a lot of cable,
infrastructure, and enough know-how to figure it out. and still, that could
just involve entertainment versus using the same functionality to, say,
change the way something appears via these potential influences.

instead of examining lighting as just a utility or as decoration, it also
could open up or unlock other meaning or hidden structures or qualities or
characteristics latent yet unexpressed or unhighlighted. the lighting of
the 2oth century World's Fairs were notable for the art of light via
electrical infrastructure which brought about a different awareness. and
then this related to the Great White Way of electrification, electrical
lights and electrical signage that changed the landscape and the way people
relate to the city, home, nighttime, movement, etc.  three books offer
insight into these dynamics in differing ways:

Electrifying America
Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrifying-america

American Genesis
A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo3627102.html

and at the infrastructural level...

Networks of Power
Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930
Thomas Parker Hughes
http://books.google.com/books?id=g07Q9M4agp4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=networks+of+power&hl=en&sa=X&ei=P4qNUvH-Oci6kQeQroHgBw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=networks%20of%20power&f=false

[reviews]
http://www.amazon.com/Networks-Power-Electrification-1880-1930-Softshell/product-reviews/0801846145/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

context:  History of electric power transmission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_electric_power_transmission

now what does this have to do with lighting gear usually related to DJ rigs
and night clubs and entertainment venues... beyond that lighting
technology, perhaps techniques have advanced over decades and now are a
major form of expression - including of information - via active 'light
signs' and even computerized, animated lighting technologies tied with LED
diodes, in terms including: longevity, size, energy-efficiency,
color-spectrum, economy, and inexpensive -in many scenarios-, mass
manufacturing.

so the illuminated sign outside the store and the billboard have been
transformed via LED lighting arrays that exist somewhere on the edge of
beings screens, where the pixels are usually mapped to a visible array of
lights, versus the microscopic pixels of higher resolution computer display
screens. and yet these electronic signs and billboards as "communication"
appear as a mundane functionality, versus a potential realm of exploration
(i.e. Jenny Holzer) and thus this same boundary condition of use, the
ordinary or standard approach versus other possibilities  also could be
extended into lighting innovations beyond the realm fo signage, that also
could function as a communications medium, for signal conveyance, yet not
used this way in default configurations of cycling colors or lighting
synchronized to music and thus providing sound-&-light atmosphere, as if
lighting flashes within thunderstorm clouds, versus other kinds of signals
beaming out of the fog, outside of the nightclub scene.

in other words, lighting systems as signage, communications platform,
potentially signal systems for cryptographic content in the realm of the
semaphore, symbolic comms, etc.
here are a few introductions to the technology available...

// notice array ~35 sec. (sectional control allows pixel mapping)

[video]  COLORbar™ SMD by CHAUVET® DJ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lLkFZGalCE

info:  COLORbar™ SMD
http://www.chauvetlighting.com/colorbar-smd.html

(basically, in a combined array using DMX and software, patterns could
potentially be programmed onto the device as a display or communications
medium, including abstract signs or other language variations, within an
aesthetic context or as signage/semaphore)

[video] CHAUVET COLORbar SMD Overview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7i-TAa4mUU

(note: light patterns could be video captured by mobile phone, decrypted)

this is perhaps the most promising, most applicable to 7- and 16-segment
display issues though in the dot-matrix approach, scaled to signage versus
circuitboard component... again a massive array would be needed though
definitely, if programmable, an 3|E animation and other calculations could
occur, the larger the grid, more space for symbols and words, though that
would be room and wall-sized and a huge investment to start, versus smaller
scale...

Core™ 3x3  // units interconnect into grid array. pixel-mapping.
http://www.chauvetlighting.com/core-3x3.html

[video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh28pV5uRls

{reference : pro-series Nexus™ 4x4 & LED video wall panels
http://www.chauvetlighting.com/nexus-4x4.html
http://www.chauvetlighting.com/mvp-ta8-curve.html
http://www.chauvetlighting.com/mvp-12.html

then there are 'lines' known as colortubes, by different manufacturers
which could be used to create segmented alphanumeric characters or blocks,
or vertical or horizontal arrays. in addition, this technology is
potentially particularly well-suited to /\|\/ type dynamics...

[video]   American DJ LED Color Tube  // non-DMX, with remote
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUqkH4AGabA

[info]
http://www.americandj.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ItemNumber=1837&MainId=2&Category=L.E.D
.

[videos]  CHAUVET COLORTUBE 3.0 EQ LED // DMX controllable
http://www.chauvetlighting.com/colortube-30-eq.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq8IHSzkPE4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJUNMX_7Ahc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDzRwOH3_SM

[info] http://www.chauvetlighting.com/colortube-30-eq.html

// this appears the easiest approach if building a large pixel screen...

(really quite amazing, if it can be programmed at the pixel level)

[video]  American DJ Flash Panel 16
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g33dMySW6Jc

note: many DMX-LED lights have controllable brightness levels

-- other possibilities --

[video]  American DJ Matrix Beam LED // all metaphysics here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5UhRlCCRvg

[info] Matrix Beam LED
http://www.americandj.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ItemNumber=2144&MainId=2&Category=L.E.D
.

// if it could be hacked, programmed for custom patterns...

MotionDrape™ LED by CHAUVET®
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0w2q8dIJHg

Chauvet Motion Drape LED Review/Demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3238kKNPOhY=

// this is much more basic though of a symbolic dimension...
// like a stationary LED juggling ball, less functions and purpose.
// decorative. ambiance, yet what if designed as programmable,
// or raspberry-pi placed in similar scenario, open dev platform...

LED Color Ball
http://www.americandj.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ItemNumber=1836&MainId=2&Category=L.E.D
.

[note: in Minneapolis there used to be a giant ball on a building downtown
known as the 'weatherball' that changed color to indicate the weather
forecast and could be seen for miles. thus when snow was imminent it would
change color and people would know it would soon be snowing, etc. in this
way a simple mundane orb could function as a signaling device via what
color it is on, and what this may relate with. perhaps more could be done
with this, such as adding an info-dimension or that it is a sensor system
or a marker for geolocation or geocaching even, data point, whatever. what
if it synced with a ring or keychain, etc. or went into mood ring territory
based on proximity electrostatic charge, else like gunshot sensors, if
sharp noise or yelling detected turns red. what is the potential... is it
inert or does it tend towards interaction, is it a mirage as a crystal ball
or may it involve key exchange, etc.]

Mr. Weatherball
http://forgottenminnesota.com/2012/03/170/

Weather beacon // see history: empire state bldg & coca-cola decoder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_beacon

"A weather beacon is a beacon that indicates the local weather forecast in
a code of colored or flashing lights. Often, a short poem or jingle
accompanies the code to make it easier to remember."

-- further outward --

[video]  ADJ Laser Preview  // projection vs. aerial lasers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnLsG0Oa7yw

[video] American DJ Comscan LED // what if open patterns...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix8W-voBqPE
http://www.americandj.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ItemNumber=1929&MainId=2&Category=Lighting%20Products|Scanners

[video] full motion LED spot, remote controlled
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtHDres38r0

[video] American DJ - X Move LED 25R
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0i7Hwkj7lg

(example of potential use: modify for site-specific use, perhaps with UV or
IR lighting, invisible to normal sight. someone goes into a space,
instructed to take photo, and light illuminates dust pattern on wall that
later shows up on photograph. else, takes photo in area of others, pattern
lights up on clothing via matched wavelength thread, etc. perhaps unique
sensor in camera and light to bound other observations. thus: secret
communications, reading/writing. thus, what equipment can do this...
leading to consideration of existing DJ technology as an innovative medium
that could be explored for its potential as signage and for signaling in
various abstraction, beyond only color, into patterns, icons, movement,
animation, etc. quite a large canvas of possibilities to explore, beyond
networked PCs)

--- high abstraction pattern-match ---

e.g. what if this sketched a pattern in fog that was recognizable
via pattern-analysis of video // likely would require lasers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IZ1va8azFM

e.g. say binary pattern or sequence via on/off, hi-lo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IZ1va8azFM

sweeper beam //  lighting system language... #X/V|
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E_bomUKOW8

American DJ Tri Gem LED // gears, rotational syncing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMWqNcIiQKE

the value would be in programmability, shaping output
to particular pattern-based if transformative parameters,
in terms of randomness or calculation or AI-behaviors...

Eclipse™ RGB // merges lasers & leds
http://www.chauvetlighting.com/eclipse-rgb.html

(haunted-house crypto, moving towards MIDI-animatronics.
defensive tactic... if they cannot locate the computer, then)

[videos] DMX fog machines
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CXKpC8Rl8Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIeLwT3ppCM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tSQHHQvxyk

Fog Bandit Presentation By Legal Entry Locksmiths 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2qApXHN4y8

(might as well go all the way....

Geyser™ RGB - color LED & fog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQXFyo28Ndc

stage effect for symbolic encrypt/decrypt of binary crypto
in revue of security theater. soundtrack perfect.)

// and last but not least...

DMX bubble machine as the ultimate short-term RNG!!!
[video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAxhXivVaTY

(what, you don't like soap? think of it, floating bubbles, light,
movement, captured on video, using pattern match engine
to search reflections and colors on bubbles surface, as if
hundreds of crystal balls a second, changing each moment
to the next via lighting and wind and inter-bubble relations)

--- artifact ---

CRYPTO bobblehead, "Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon"
http://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Humans-Furon-Wobbler-Bobble-head/dp/B0038T0VJK

related: PS3/X-box 360 console game, c.2008-9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroy_All_Humans!_Path_of_the_Furon

{educational fair-use of copyright, 2013}

arugula, shallot, leek
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From michael at briarproject.org  Thu Nov 21 04:17:38 2013
From: michael at briarproject.org (Michael Rogers)
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 12:17:38 +0000
Subject: [liberationtech] Exclusive: Inside America's Plan to Kill
 Online Privacy Rights Everywhere
In-Reply-To: <20131121112958.GF5661@leitl.org>
References: <20131121112958.GF5661@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <528DF9E2.4090306@briarproject.org>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 21/11/13 11:29, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> 
> http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/20/exclusive_inside_americas_plan_to_kill_online_privacy_rights_everywhere
>
> 
For users of Adblock Plus, the following rule allows access:

||foreignpolicy.com/sites/all/themes/fp/projects/identity/*

Cheers,
Michael

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-- 
Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys at stanford.edu.

From eugen at leitl.org  Thu Nov 21 03:29:58 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 12:29:58 +0100
Subject: Exclusive: Inside America's Plan to Kill Online Privacy Rights
 Everywhere
Message-ID: <20131121112958.GF5661@leitl.org>

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/20/exclusive_inside_americas_plan_to_kill_online_privacy_rights_everywhere

Exclusive: Inside America's Plan to Kill Online Privacy Rights Everywhere

Posted By Colum Lynch   Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 6:10 PM     Share

The United States and its key intelligence allies are quietly working behind
the scenes to kneecap a mounting movement in the United Nations to promote a
universal human right to online privacy, according to diplomatic sources and
an internal American government document obtained by The Cable.

The diplomatic battle is playing out in an obscure U.N. General Assembly
committee that is considering a proposal by Brazil and Germany to place
constraints on unchecked internet surveillance by the National Security
Agency and other foreign intelligence services. American representatives have
made it clear that they won't tolerate such checks on their global
surveillance network. The stakes are high, particularly in Washington --
which is seeking to contain an international backlash against NSA spying --
and in Brasilia, where Brazilian President Dilma Roussef is personally
involved in monitoring the U.N. negotiations.

The Brazilian and German initiative seeks to apply the right to privacy,
which is enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), to online communications. Their proposal, first revealed by
The Cable, affirms a "right to privacy that is not to be subjected to
arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, family, home, or
correspondence." It notes that while public safety may "justify the gathering
and protection of certain sensitive information," nations "must ensure full
compliance" with international human rights laws. A final version the text is
scheduled to be presented to U.N. members on Wednesday evening and the
resolution is expected to be adopted next week.

A draft of the resolution, which was obtained by The Cable, calls on states
to "to respect and protect the right to privacy," asserting that the "same
rights that people have offline must also be protected online, including the
right to privacy." It also requests the U.N. high commissioner for human
rights, Navi Pillay, present the U.N. General Assembly next year with a
report on the protection and promotion of the right to privacy, a provision
that will ensure the issue remains on the front burner.

Publicly, U.S. representatives say they're open to an affirmation of privacy
rights. "The United States takes very seriously our international legal
obligations, including those under the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights," Kurtis Cooper, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the
United Nations, said in an email. "We have been actively and constructively
negotiating to ensure that the resolution promotes human rights and is
consistent with those obligations."

But privately, American diplomats are pushing hard to kill a provision of the
Brazilian and German draft which states that "extraterritorial surveillance"
and mass interception of communications, personal information, and metadata
may constitute a violation of human rights. The United States and its allies,
according to diplomats, outside observers, and documents, contend that the
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not apply to foreign espionage.

In recent days, the United States circulated to its allies a confidential
paper highlighting American objectives in the negotiations, "Right to Privacy
in the Digital Age -- U.S. Redlines." It calls for changing the Brazilian and
German text so "that references to privacy rights are referring explicitly to
States' obligations under ICCPR and remove suggestion that such obligations
apply extraterritorially." In other words: America wants to make sure it
preserves the right to spy overseas.

The U.S. paper also calls on governments to promote amendments that would
weaken Brazil's and Germany's contention that some "highly intrusive" acts of
online espionage may constitute a violation of freedom of expression.
Instead, the United States wants to limit the focus to illegal surveillance
-- which the American government claims it never, ever does. Collecting
information on tens of millions of people around the world is perfectly
acceptable, the Obama administration has repeatedly said. It's authorized by
U.S. statute, overseen by Congress, and approved by American courts.

"Recall that the USG's [U.S. government's] collection activities that have
been disclosed are lawful collections done in a manner protective of privacy
rights," the paper states. "So a paragraph expressing concern about illegal
surveillance is one with which we would agree."

The privacy resolution, like most General Assembly decisions, is neither
legally binding nor enforceable by any international court. But international
lawyers say it is important because it creates the basis for an international
consensus -- referred to as "soft law" -- that over time will make it harder
and harder for the United States to argue that its mass collection of
foreigners' data is lawful and in conformity with human rights norms.

"They want to be able to say ‘we haven't broken the law, we're not breaking
the law, and we won't break the law,'" said Dinah PoKempner, the general
counsel for Human Rights Watch, who has been tracking the negotiations. The
United States, she added, wants to be able to maintain that "we have the
freedom to scoop up anything we want through the massive surveillance of
foreigners because we have no legal obligations."

The United States negotiators have been pressing their case behind the
scenes, raising concerns that the assertion of extraterritorial human rights
could constrain America's effort to go after international terrorists. But
Washington has remained relatively muted about their concerns in the U.N.
negotiating sessions. According to one diplomat, "the United States has been
very much in the backseat," leaving it to its allies, Australia, Britain, and
Canada, to take the lead.

There is no extraterritorial obligation on states "to comply with human
rights," explained one diplomat who supports the U.S. position. "The
obligation is on states to uphold the human rights of citizens within their
territory and areas of their jurisdictions."

The position, according to Jamil Dakwar, the director of the American Civil
Liberties Union's Human Rights Program, has little international backing. The
International Court of Justice, the U.N. Human Rights Committee, and the
European Court have all asserted that states do have an obligation to comply
with human rights laws beyond their own borders, he noted. "Governments do
have obligation beyond their territories," said Dakwar, particularly in
situations, like the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where the United States
exercises "effective control" over the lives of the detainees.

Both PoKempner and Dakwar suggested that courts may also judge that the U.S.
dominance of the Internet places special legal obligations on it to ensure
the protection of users' human rights.

"It's clear that when the United States is conducting surveillance, these
decisions and operations start in the United States, the servers are at NSA
headquarters, and the capabilities are mainly in the United States," he said.
"To argue that they have no human rights obligations overseas is dangerous
because it sends a message that there is void in terms of human rights
protection outside countries territory. It's going back to the idea that you
can create a legal black hole where there is no applicable law." There were
signs emerging on Wednesday that America may have been making ground in
pressing the Brazilians and Germans to back on one of its toughest
provisions. In an effort to address the concerns of the U.S. and its allies,
Brazil and Germany agreed to soften the language suggesting that mass
surveillance may constitute a violation of human rights. Instead, it simply
deep "concern at the negative impact" that extraterritorial surveillance "may
have on the exercise of and enjoyment of human rights." The U.S., however,
has not yet indicated it would support the revised proposal.

The concession "is regrettable. But it’s not the end of the battle by any
means," said Human Rights Watch’s PoKempner. She added that there will soon
be another opportunity to corral America's spies: a U.N. discussion on
possible human rights violations as a result of extraterritorial surveillance
will soon be taken up by the U.N. High commissioner.

Follow me on Twitter: @columlynch.

From juniorbsd at gmail.com  Fri Nov 22 07:33:52 2013
From: juniorbsd at gmail.com (J. Tozo)
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:33:52 -0200
Subject: Users ID'ed through typing, mouse movements
In-Reply-To: <20131122151752.GB5661@leitl.org>
References: <20131122151752.GB5661@leitl.org>
Message-ID: 

Very clever, maybe in the future it can be used as second or even third
authentication factor.

On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 1:17 PM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:

>
>
> http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/365221,users-ided-through-typing-mouse-movements.aspx
>
> Users ID'ed through typing, mouse movements
>
> By Darren Pauli on Nov 22, 2013 2:16 PM
>
> Continuous authentication app created from DARPA research.
>
> Researchers have built a continuous authentication platform that can
> accurately identify users based on their typing patterns.
>
> A series of 90 minute typing tests carried out on 2000 people at Iowa State
> University found users could be identified with a half percent margin of
> error based on the way they hit keys.
>
> The work has been spun into an application that could continuously
> authenticate users and lock accounts if another person jumped on the
> computer
> resulting in irregularities being detected. (pdf)
>
> Uniquely syncopated mouse and keyboard patterns made it possible to
> identify
> users, Iowa State University associate professor Morris Chang said.
>
> “These pauses between words, searches for unusual characters and spellings
> of
> unfamiliar words, all have to do with our past experiences, our learning
> experiences,” Chang said. “And so we call them cognitive fingerprints which
> manifest themselves in typing rhythms.”
>
> “The system can see if the same person or an imposter is coming in to
> hijack
> the computer."
>
> The year-long research run together with electrical engineering students
> Terry Fang, Kuan-Hsing Ho and Danny Shih received a half a million dollar
> grant from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which sought to
> discover if continuous authentication was possible.
>
> It was now being extended to capture mouse movements and touch inputs from
> mobile devices with an additional $1.76 million dollars from the agency
> over
> two years.
>
> Copyright © SC Magazine, Australia
>

-- 
Grato,

J. Tozo
     _
   °v°
  /(S)\    SLACKWARE
   ^ ^           Linux
_____________________
         because it works
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From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Fri Nov 22 13:04:24 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 15:04:24 -0600
Subject: hidden parameters (urls)
Message-ID: 

--- perceptual thresholds ---

IR vision lets researchers see through—and into—multiple layers of graphene
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-infrared-vision-throughand-intomultiple-layers.html

--- on natural fluorescence ---

// intro to blacklight with rocks starts around 5:47 min...

[video] Bill's Fluorescent Rock and Mineral Collection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVtWOcrat4o

[video]  Science Friday: 3:36 min tour
http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/05/05/2011/rock-stars.html

"In 1968, the New Jersey Senate decreed the town of Franklin a geological
wonder: "The Fluorescent Mineral Capital of the World." Over 350 different
minerals have been found in the area, ninety of which glow brilliantly
under ultraviolet light. There are two mineral museums devoted to
fluorescing rocks, the region's unusual geology and its zinc mining
history."

[search] images of fluorescent minerals in rocks...
https://www.google.com/search?q=fluorescent+rocks&client=firefox-a&hs=ZEF&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=np&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=lEaOUpy6EZDAkQfRs4HwDw&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=1432&bih=830

What Materials Glow Under a Black or Ultraviolet Light?
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/f/blblacklight.htm

[images] Hall of Fame Specimens - fluorescent minerals in rocks
http://www.tigerowner.com/crf_photos.htm

// fingerprinting phosphorescence patterns, real vs. fake diamonds

UV Rays Shed New Light on the Hope Diamond’s Mysterious Red Glow
http://mineralsciences.si.edu/research/gems/hope_diamond/blue_diamond_research.htm

[quote] The 45.52-carat blue diamond puzzles scientists because of the
fiery red glow it gives off for several minutes after being exposed to
ultra-violet light. Scientists refer to this phenomenon as
phosphorescence.  “It looks like a glowing orange coal in your barbeque
grill,” explains Post.  “It has been described as one of the unique
properties of this unique diamond, something special to the Hope Diamond.”
[quote]

// note: electronic lollipop, the new healthy cigarette?

Electrode recreates all four tastes on your tongue
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029444.500-electrode-recreates-all-four-tastes-on-your-tongue.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|online-news#.Uo5lVOKSEuh

NEW:  CF = collider function (juxtapose A & B) interstructure. e.g:

a. High tech toilets receive big prizes from Bill Gates
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/15/bill_gates_toilet_fair/

b. Kanye West blasts Zappos for 'shit product,' Zappos responds with toilet
picture
http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/20/5127502/kanye-west-blasts-zappos-for-shit-product

// International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2009

[video] People vs. Power (1/2) Walking and Talking with Peter Wintonick...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0L1BCN9Ze4

// about bicycle cultures today, componentry bureaucratized,
// efficiencies/innovation lost to varying incongruent approaches.
// missing information, parts do not match, line-up, made esoteric.
// guess that is everything to do with beliefs and mindset translated
// into general manufacturing approach, as with computer devices.
// shared model vs 'reinventing' & duplication ideologically forced.

[video] People vs. Power (2/2) Walking and Talking with Peter Wintonick...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJZ-wiuaJeo

[video] The Kids in This Billboard Point at Actual Planes Flying Overhead
http://gizmodo.com/the-kids-in-this-billboard-point-at-actual-planes-flyin-1469014169

// interactive advert reminded me of this...

[video] First Official Clip from The Zero Theorem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyY5InLYJPQ

[video] The Zero Theorem official trailer - film by Terry Gilliam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLYkXhgFIAk

--- crypto gift ideas --- :L

[note: wondered if computer crypto approach has become detached from
questioning basics of cryptography outside of a computer context. also, for
those like myself with interest yet little knowledge, how to approach the
subject, beyond just reading. various authors and thinkers have mentioned
reading childrens books rather than academic texts for a basic and
introductory overview of a subject. thus, what about those interested in
crypto, is a childrens crypto kit beyond the domain of issues involved in
crypto, or perhaps may some fundamental skills, questions, issues remain
overlooked or already decided upon in a given framework. therefore, for
child or adult with crypto interest...]

Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing (Dover Children's Activity Books)
http://www.amazon.com/Ciphers-Secret-Writing-Childrens-Activity/dp/0486247619/ref=pd_sim_t_10

Kidz Labs - Spy Science Secret Message Kit - Ages 5+
http://www.amazon.com/Kidz-Labs-Science-Secret-Message/dp/B000JM0JCS

POOF-Slinky 2023 Slinky Science Secret Messages Mini Lab
http://www.amazon.com/POOF-Slinky-2023-Slinky-Science-Messages/dp/B000BL1C96

Circuit Stickers  // electronic principles, circuits
https://www.crowdsupply.com/chibitronics/circuit-stickers
note: microcontroller programmable, paper, etc.

--- on rings ---

recently mentioned data exchange between electromagnetic ring and symbolic
device...

once visited the Intel Museum which had a gift shop that sold jewelry made
from unusable pentium chips; cufflinks, necklaces, earrings, and presumably
rings (though do not remember seeing them).

Intel CPU Chip Jewelry & Pins
http://www.chipsetc.com/intel-jewelry--pins.html

so any such key-exchange or other interaction between ring and device, in a
data mood ring or other informational approach, is going to have circuitry
built into it, issues of energy and power, and involve transistors,
capacitors, resisters, protocols, etc. so in some sense there is a depth to
the circuitry, it is not just an image of a ring but a complexity hidden
beyond the boudary of what is immediately visable- whereas the Intel
jewelry was itself this circuitry on display, as if a future data ring
would involve these aesthetic dimensions, inherently. note also the issue
of toxins in manufacturing if a diy approach with repurposed circuitboards
and components, highly toxic to skin, eyes, etc. including chemical
offgasing, related to toxic waste sites of discarded electronics, this
leaking into groundwater, poisoning populations.

the concept of a data ring that is an IC or computer that then interacts
with the environment, say in a crypto context, that it carries passwords,
synced as a paired identity device validating ID or providing
authentication or whatever. and so this functionality is just not an issue
of taking an IC or processor, memory, and storage and having 'data' on the
ring. it would need to be secured, have its own perimeter security, ways of
allowing and preventing access, etc.

the following rings visualize this greater involvement in the aesthetics
beyond just what the device would look like, and into its multilayered
in-depth construction, in dimensions that may also be internal and unseen.
thus a parallel between the chip as structure and building as structure,
and similarity of issues of detailing and design, issues of foundation, &
so on...

[image search] architecture rings
https://www.google.com/search?q=bague&client=firefox-a&hs=7GZ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=rcs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=MT2OUvGMJsO2kQf5goDABQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1432&bih=830#channel=rcs&q=bague+archit&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&tbm=isch&imgdii=_

the larger context for this is the parallel between the circuitboard and
the city (plug-in city, Archigram) and again issues of relations of
building types and electronic components that have interrelated structures,
functioning, and programming of circuitry at the larger scale. in this way,
modularity into a larger entity, say 'crypto' and 'comms' (NFC) and
'processor' and 'memory' and 'storage'; likewise- stadium, highways, bank,
tv station, school, dwellings.

[image]  cityscape ring
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ip12zh9vdvI/StTg6_V0qkI/AAAAAAAAAWM/5NaTtzcq__4/s400/tumblr_kr2kwxS7ob1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg&w=400&h=300&ei=XT2OUruAH83SkQeDiYHIBw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:36,s:100,i:112&iact=rc&page=5&tbnh=161&tbnw=234&ndsp=32&tx=135&ty=71

Philippe Tourraine - Les bagues Architecture
http://www.philippetournaire.com/collections/70-architecture

what would the foundation be, what would the walls be, roof, how many
buildings, how are they arranged, what is the interior and exterior
relation and dynamic, what is the perimeter, what is the functionality and
purpose, what can it do and why. rings and sensors, modules, ecosystem
relations, programmability, display or opaque, indicating feedback, etc.
what is potential for, sans LCD, micro- or nano-leds as ultra-low power
matrix. beyond conventions. how many different typological relations in
larger ecological context: ring-computer, ring-phone, ring-signage,
ring-symbolic.device (orb), ring-POS.device, ring-ATM machine, etc.

// and a potential approach for managing crypto keys...

ex. Intel Chip Keychain
http://www.chipsetc.com/uploads/1/2/4/4/1244189/4120271_orig.jpg?196

Intel Chip Keychains
http://www.chipsetc.com/intel-keychains-page-5.html

{educational fair-use of copyright, 2013}

א ט ם ך
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From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Fri Nov 22 07:53:59 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey (Phone))
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 15:53:59 +0000
Subject: Users ID'ed through typing, mouse movements
In-Reply-To: 
References: <20131122151752.GB5661@leitl.org>

Message-ID: <4d0984fc-5c08-455a-b000-a448b3ad5265@email.android.com>

Or today to deanonymise tor users using javascript.

"J. Tozo"  wrote:
>Very clever, maybe in the future it can be used as second or even third
>authentication factor.
>
>
>On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 1:17 PM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/365221,users-ided-through-typing-mouse-movements.aspx
>>
>> Users ID'ed through typing, mouse movements
>>
>> By Darren Pauli on Nov 22, 2013 2:16 PM
>>
>> Continuous authentication app created from DARPA research.
>>
>> Researchers have built a continuous authentication platform that can
>> accurately identify users based on their typing patterns.
>>
>> A series of 90 minute typing tests carried out on 2000 people at Iowa
>State
>> University found users could be identified with a half percent margin
>of
>> error based on the way they hit keys.
>>
>> The work has been spun into an application that could continuously
>> authenticate users and lock accounts if another person jumped on the
>> computer
>> resulting in irregularities being detected. (pdf)
>>
>> Uniquely syncopated mouse and keyboard patterns made it possible to
>> identify
>> users, Iowa State University associate professor Morris Chang said.
>>
>> “These pauses between words, searches for unusual characters and
>spellings
>> of
>> unfamiliar words, all have to do with our past experiences, our
>learning
>> experiences,” Chang said. “And so we call them cognitive fingerprints
>which
>> manifest themselves in typing rhythms.”
>>
>> “The system can see if the same person or an imposter is coming in to
>> hijack
>> the computer."
>>
>> The year-long research run together with electrical engineering
>students
>> Terry Fang, Kuan-Hsing Ho and Danny Shih received a half a million
>dollar
>> grant from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which
>sought to
>> discover if continuous authentication was possible.
>>
>> It was now being extended to capture mouse movements and touch inputs
>from
>> mobile devices with an additional $1.76 million dollars from the
>agency
>> over
>> two years.
>>
>> Copyright © SC Magazine, Australia
>>
>
>
>
>-- 
>Grato,
>
>J. Tozo
>     _
>   °v°
>  /(S)\    SLACKWARE
>   ^ ^           Linux
>_____________________
>         because it works

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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From eugen at leitl.org  Fri Nov 22 07:17:52 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 16:17:52 +0100
Subject: Users ID'ed through typing, mouse movements
Message-ID: <20131122151752.GB5661@leitl.org>

http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/365221,users-ided-through-typing-mouse-movements.aspx

Users ID'ed through typing, mouse movements

By Darren Pauli on Nov 22, 2013 2:16 PM

Continuous authentication app created from DARPA research.

Researchers have built a continuous authentication platform that can
accurately identify users based on their typing patterns.

A series of 90 minute typing tests carried out on 2000 people at Iowa State
University found users could be identified with a half percent margin of
error based on the way they hit keys.

The work has been spun into an application that could continuously
authenticate users and lock accounts if another person jumped on the computer
resulting in irregularities being detected. (pdf)

Uniquely syncopated mouse and keyboard patterns made it possible to identify
users, Iowa State University associate professor Morris Chang said.

“These pauses between words, searches for unusual characters and spellings of
unfamiliar words, all have to do with our past experiences, our learning
experiences,” Chang said. “And so we call them cognitive fingerprints which
manifest themselves in typing rhythms.”

“The system can see if the same person or an imposter is coming in to hijack
the computer."

The year-long research run together with electrical engineering students
Terry Fang, Kuan-Hsing Ho and Danny Shih received a half a million dollar
grant from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which sought to
discover if continuous authentication was possible.

It was now being extended to capture mouse movements and touch inputs from
mobile devices with an additional $1.76 million dollars from the agency over
two years.

Copyright © SC Magazine, Australia

From dan at geer.org  Fri Nov 22 19:37:24 2013
From: dan at geer.org (dan at geer.org)
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:37:24 -0500
Subject: Tor for the masses
Message-ID: <20131123033724.1FCC822819F@palinka.tinho.net>

http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/21/pogoplug-packages-tor-for-the-mass-market-with-the-49-safeplug/

leading to

https://pogoplug.com/safeplug

--dan

From adi at hexapodia.org  Sat Nov 23 11:43:27 2013
From: adi at hexapodia.org (Andy Isaacson)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 11:43:27 -0800
Subject: whoah
In-Reply-To: <20131123114848.GI5661@leitl.org>
References: <20131123114848.GI5661@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <20131123194327.GZ7523@hexapodia.org>

On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 12:48:48PM +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> https://blockchain.info/tx/1c12443203a48f42cdf7b1acee5b4b1c1fedc144cb909a3bf5edbffafb0cd204 
> 
> http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1r87p5/omfg_what_is_going_on/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/23/heres-who-probably-did-that-massive-150000000-bitcoin-transaction/

Tim Lee cites Sarah Meiklejohn:

    While she says she can't be sure, Meiklejohn says that that
    194,993-bitcoin transaction was probably done by Bitstamp, the
    world's second-largest exchange for trading dollars for bitcoins:

-andy

From jya at pipeline.com  Sat Nov 23 09:08:43 2013
From: jya at pipeline.com (John Young)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 12:08:43 -0500
Subject: NSA Global SIGINT Power to Generate Profits and Pay
Message-ID: 

The NSA SIGINT Strategy 2012-2016 pretty well covers all the
comsec and crypto initiatives to covertly exploit people, cryptographers,
anonymizers, informants, planted spies, security firms, networks,
governments, nations, friends, lovers and citizens.

Not sure leaks, lawsuits and protests will deter this bounty of
profits for the comsec industry, unless the public is aroused to
demand the 3 branches grasp the nettle, and all those making
money from this deception operation decide to give up their
profits, perks and prestige.

I mean those on the comsec and crypto lists, those participating
in standards committees, those enjoying contracts and grants in
think tanks and universities, those in law firms and public interest
orgs, those in the media and academia, those in non-spy gov agencies,
pretending to be in opposition as they scramble to rejigger their
products and sales pitches, to exploit what is being fabricated
to diminish Snowden's revelations with new forms of secrecy,
technology, law, regulations, bribery, lobbying, grants, contracts,
list lurking, online and offline spying, break-ins, the usual kaboodle,
to assure the NSA goals are fulfilled.

http://cryptome.org/2013/11/nsa-sigint-strategy-2012-2016.pdf

[Excerpt]

SIGINT Goals for 2012-2016

1. (U//FOUO) Revolutionize analysis  fundamentally shift our analytic 
approach from a production to a discovery bias, enriched by 
innovative customer/partner engagement, radically increasing 
operational impact across all mission domains.

1.1. (U//FOUO) Through advanced tradecraft and automation, 
dramatically increase mastery of the global network

1.2. (U//FOUO) Conduct original analysis in a collaborative 
information space that mirrors how people interact in the information age

1.3. (U//FOUO) Disseminate data at its first point of relevance, 
share bulk data, and enable customers to address niche requirements

1.4. (U//FOUO) Drive an agile technology base mapped to the cognitive 
processes that underpin large scale analysis, discovery, compliance 
and collaboration

2. (U//FOUO) Fully leverage internal and external NSA partnerships to 
collaboratively discover targets, find their vulnerabilities, and 
overcome their network/communication defenses.

2.1. (U//FOUO) Bolster our arsenal of capabilities against the most 
critical cryptanalytic challenges 2.1.1. (S//SI//REL) Employ 
multidisciplinary approaches to cryptanalytic problems, leveraging 
and integrating mid-point and end-point capabilities to enable cryptanalysis

2.1.2. (S//REL) Counter the challenge of ubiquitous, strong, 
commercial network encryption

2.1.3. (TS//SI//REL) Counter indigenous cryptographic programs by 
targeting their industrial bases with all available SIGINT and HUMINT 
capabilities

2.1.4. (TS//SI//REL) Influence the global commercial encryption 
market through commercial relationships, HUMINT, and second and third 
party partners

2.1.5. (S//SI//REL) Continue to invest in the industrial base and 
drive the state of the art for High Performance Computing to maintain 
pre-eminent cryptanalytic capability for the nation

2.2. (TS//SI//REL) Defeat adversary cybersecurity practices in order 
to acquire the SIGINT data we need from anyone, anytime, anywhere

2.3. (S//SI) Enable discovery capabilities and advanced tradecraft in 
the collection architecture to enable the discovery of 
mission-critical persona, networks, accesses, signals and technologies

2.4. (S//SI) Integrate capabilities into the mission architecture, 
deepen workforce skill base in advanced network and signals analysis, 
and optimize processes and policies for the benefit of discovery

3. (S//SI//REL) Dynamically integrate endpoint, midpoint, 
industrial-enabled, and cryptanalytic capabilities to reach 
previously inaccessible targets in support of exploitation, cyber 
defense, and cyber operations

3.1. (C//REL) Drive the SIGINT mission architecture to underpin 
synchronized, integrated, multi-capability operations, extending it 
to mission partners

3.2. (TS//SI//REL) Integrate the SIGINT system into a national 
network of sensors which interactively sense, respond, and alert one 
another at machine speed

3.3. (U//FOUO) Continuously rebalance our portfolio of accesses and 
access capabilities based on current and projected contributions to 
key SIGINT missions

3.4. (S//SI//REL) Identify new access, collection, and exploitation 
methods by leveraging global business trends in data and 
communications services

[End excerpt]

From eugen at leitl.org  Sat Nov 23 03:48:48 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 12:48:48 +0100
Subject: whoah
Message-ID: <20131123114848.GI5661@leitl.org>

https://blockchain.info/tx/1c12443203a48f42cdf7b1acee5b4b1c1fedc144cb909a3bf5edbffafb0cd204 

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1r87p5/omfg_what_is_going_on/

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Sat Nov 23 14:54:07 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 14:54:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Youtube item on "Assassination market"
Message-ID: <1385247247.76471.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

I found this on Youtube.com.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbGypiDik2E   
(Disclaimer:  I am not associated with 'Sanjuro's "Assassination Market" in any way.  I do not know who he is.)

          Jim Bell
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From dave at farber.net  Sat Nov 23 11:56:20 2013
From: dave at farber.net (Dave Farber)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 14:56:20 -0500
Subject: [IP] NSA report
Message-ID: 

[image: The New York Times] 

------------------------------
November 22, 2013
N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More PowerBy JAMES
RISEN
 and LAURA POITRAS

WASHINGTON — Officials at the National Security
Agency,
intent on maintaining its dominance in intelligence collection, pledged
last year to push to expand its surveillance powers, according to a
top-secret strategy document.

In a February 2012
paper
laying
out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence
operations, which include the agency’s eavesdropping and communications
data collection around the world, agency officials set an objective to
“aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more
fully to the information age.”

Written as an agency mission statement with broad goals, the five-page
document said that existing American laws were not adequate to meet the
needs of the N.S.A. to conduct broad surveillance in what it cited as “the
golden age of Sigint,” or signals intelligence. “The interpretation and
guidelines for applying our authorities, and in some cases the authorities
themselves, have not kept pace with the complexity of the technology and
target environments, or the operational expectations levied on N.S.A.’s
mission,” the document concluded.

Using sweeping language, the paper also outlined some of the agency’s other
ambitions. They included defeating the cybersecurity practices of
adversaries in order to acquire the data the agency needs from “anyone,
anytime, anywhere.” The agency also said it would try to decrypt or bypass
codes that keep communications secret by influencing “the global commercial
encryption market through commercial relationships,” human spies and
intelligence partners in other countries. It also talked of the need to
“revolutionize” analysis of its vast collections of data to “radically
increase operational impact.”

The strategy document, provided by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J.
Snowden, was written at a time when the agency was at the peak of its
powers and the scope of its surveillance operations was still secret. Since
then, Mr. Snowden’s revelations have changed the political landscape.

Prompted by a public outcry over the N.S.A.’s domestic operations, the
agency’s critics in Congress have been pushing to limit, rather than
expand, its ability to routinely collect the phone and email records of
millions of Americans, while foreign leaders have protested reports of
virtually unlimited N.S.A. surveillance overseas, even in allied nations.
Several inquiries are underway in Washington; Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the
N.S.A.’s longest-serving director, has announced plans to
retire;
and the White House has offered proposals to disclose more information
about the agency’s domestic surveillance activities.

The N.S.A. document, titled “Sigint Strategy 2012-2016,” does not make
clear what legal or policy changes the agency might seek. The N.S.A.’s
powers are determined variously by Congress, executive orders and the
nation’s secret intelligence court, and its operations are governed by
layers of regulations. While asserting that the agency’s “culture of
compliance” would not be compromised, N.S.A. officials argued that they
needed more flexibility, according to the paper.

Senior intelligence officials, responding to questions about the document,
said that the N.S.A. believed that legal impediments limited its ability to
conduct surveillance of terrorism suspects inside the United States.
Despite an overhaul of national security law in 2008, the officials said,
if a terrorism suspect who is under surveillance overseas enters the United
States, the agency has to stop monitoring him until it obtains a warrant
from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

“N.S.A.’s Sigint strategy is designed to guide investments in future
capabilities and close gaps in current capabilities,” the agency said in a
statement. “In an ever-changing technology and telecommunications
environment, N.S.A. tries to get in front of issues to better fulfill the
foreign-intelligence requirements of the U.S. government.”

Critics, including some congressional leaders, say that the role of N.S.A.
surveillance in thwarting terrorist attacks — often cited by the agency to
justify expanded powers — has been exaggerated. In response to the
controversy about its activities after Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, agency
officials claimed that the N.S.A.’s sweeping domestic surveillance programs
had helped in 54 “terrorist-related activities.” But under growing
scrutiny, congressional staff members and other critics say that the use of
such figures by defenders of the agency has drastically overstated the
value of the domestic surveillance programs in counterterrorism.

Agency leaders believe that the N.S.A. has never enjoyed such a target-rich
environment as it does now because of the global explosion of digital
information — and they want to make certain that they can dominate “the
Sigint battle space” in the future, the document said. To be “optimally
effective,” the paper said, “legal, policy and process authorities must be
as adaptive and dynamic as the technological and operational advances we
seek to exploit.”

Intent on unlocking the secrets of adversaries, the paper underscores the
agency’s long-term goal of being able to collect virtually everything
available in the digital world. To achieve that objective, the paper
suggests that the N.S.A. plans to gain greater access, in a variety of
ways, to the infrastructure of the world’s telecommunications networks.

Reports based on other documents previously leaked by Mr. Snowden showed
that the N.S.A. has infiltrated the cable
links
to
Google and Yahoo data centers around the world, leading to protests from
company executives and a growing backlash against the N.S.A. in Silicon
Valley.

Yet the paper also shows how the agency believes it can influence and shape
trends in high-tech industries in other ways to suit its needs. One of the
agency’s goals is to “continue to invest in the industrial base and drive
the state of the art for high performance computing to maintain pre-eminent
cryptanalytic capability for the nation.” The paper added that the N.S.A.
must seek to “identify new access, collection and exploitation methods by
leveraging global business trends in data and communications services.”

And it wants to find ways to combine all of its technical tools to enhance
its surveillance powers. The N.S.A. will seek to integrate its
“capabilities to reach previously inaccessible targets in support of
exploitation, cyberdefense and cyberoperations,” the paper stated.

The agency also intends to improve its access to encrypted communications
used by individuals, businesses and foreign governments, the strategy
document said. The N.S.A. has already had some success in defeating
encryption, The New York Times has
reported,
but the document makes it clear that countering “ubiquitous, strong,
commercial network encryption” is a top priority. The agency plans to fight
back against the rise of encryption through relationships with companies
that develop encryption tools and through espionage operations. In other
countries, the document said, the N.S.A. must also “counter indigenous
cryptographic programs by targeting their industrial bases with all
available Sigint and Humint” — human intelligence, meaning spies.

The document also mentioned a goal of integrating the agency’s
eavesdropping and data collection systems into a national network of
sensors that interactively “sense, respond and alert one another at machine
speed.” Senior intelligence officials said that the system of sensors is
designed to protect the computer networks of the Defense Department, and
that the N.S.A. does not use data collected from Americans for the system.

One of the agency’s other four-year goals was to “share bulk data” more
broadly to allow for better analysis. While the paper does not explain in
detail how widely it would disseminate bulk data within the intelligence
community, the proposal raises questions about what safeguards the N.S.A.
plans to place on its domestic phone and email data collection programs to
protect Americans’ privacy.

N.S.A. officials have insisted that they have placed tight controls on
those programs. In an interview, the senior intelligence officials said
that the strategy paper was referring to the agency’s desire to share
foreign data more broadly, not phone logs of Americans collected under
the Patriot
Act
.

Above all, the strategy paper suggests the N.S.A.’s vast view of its
mission: nothing less than to “dramatically increase mastery of the global
network.”

Other N.S.A. documents offer hints of how the agency is trying to do just
that. One program, code-named Treasure Map, provides what a secret N.S.A.
PowerPoint presentation describes as “a near real-time, interactive map of
the global Internet.” According to the undated PowerPoint presentation,
disclosed by Mr. Snowden, Treasure Map gives the N.S.A. “a 300,000 foot
view of the Internet.”

Relying on Internet routing data, commercial and Sigint information,
Treasure Map is a sophisticated tool, one that the PowerPoint presentation
describes as a “massive Internet mapping, analysis and exploration engine.”
It collects Wi-Fi network and geolocation data, and between 30 million and
50 million unique Internet provider addresses — code that can reveal the
location and owner of a computer, mobile device or router — are represented
each day on Treasure Map, according to the document. It boasts that the
program can map “any device, anywhere, all the time.”

The documents include addresses labeled as based in the “U.S.,” and because
so much Internet traffic flows through the United States, it would be
difficult to map much of the world without capturing such addresses.

But the intelligence officials said that Treasure Map maps only foreign and
Defense Department networks, and is limited by the amount of data available
to the agency. There are several billion I.P. addresses on the Internet,
the officials said, and Treasure Map cannot map them all. The program is
not used for surveillance, they said, but to understand computer networks.

The program takes advantage of the capabilities of other secret N.S.A.
programs. To support Treasure Map, for example, the document states that
another program, called Packaged Goods, tracks the “traceroutes” through
which data flows around the Internet. Through Packaged Goods, the N.S.A.
has gained access to “13 covered servers in unwitting data centers around
the globe,” according to the PowerPoint. The document identifies a list of
countries where the data centers are located, including Germany, Poland,
Denmark, South Africa and Taiwan as well as Russia, China and Singapore.

Despite the document’s reference to “unwitting data centers,” government
officials said that the agency does not hack into those centers. Instead,
the officials said, the intelligence community secretly uses front
companies to lease space on the servers.

Despite the N.S.A.’s broad surveillance powers, the strategy paper shows
that N.S.A. officials still worry about the agency’s ability to fend off
bureaucratic inertia while keeping pace with change.

“To sustain current mission relevance,” the document said, Signals
Intelligence Directorate, the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence arm, “must
undertake a profound and revolutionary shift from the mission approach
which has served us so well in the decades preceding the onset of the
information age.”

James Risen reported from Washington, and Laura Poitras from Berlin.

-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/25094221-ddf8422b
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

----- End forwarded message -----

From eugen at leitl.org  Sat Nov 23 13:53:52 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 22:53:52 +0100
Subject: [IP] NSA report
Message-ID: <20131123215352.GE10793@leitl.org>

----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber  -----

From author at anonymousbitcoinbook.com  Sat Nov 23 20:21:24 2013
From: author at anonymousbitcoinbook.com (author at anonymousbitcoinbook.com)
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 00:21:24 -0400
Subject: Youtube item on "Assassination market"
In-Reply-To: <1385247247.76471.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385247247.76471.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

On 2013-11-23 18:54, Jim Bell wrote:
> I found this on Youtube.com. 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbGypiDik2E [1]
> (Disclaimer: I am not associated with 'Sanjuro's "Assassination
> Market" in any way. I do not know who he is.)
> 
>  Jim Bell
> 
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http:///

1) Ew, if it's real. Nothing good can come from that.
2) Probably not real, but just a honeypot.

Interesting find, in any case.

-Kristov

From mike at gogulski.com  Sun Nov 24 00:10:44 2013
From: mike at gogulski.com (Mike Gogulski)
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 09:10:44 +0100
Subject: Youtube item on "Assassination market"
In-Reply-To: <1385247247.76471.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385247247.76471.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5291B484.4000101@gogulski.com>

Totally fucking cool.

On 11/23/2013 11:54 PM, Jim Bell wrote:
> I found this on Youtube.com.    
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbGypiDik2E    
> (Disclaimer:  I am not associated with 'Sanjuro's "Assassination
> Market" in any way.  I do not know who he is.)
>           Jim Bell

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From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 01:09:27 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 01:09:27 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
Message-ID: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2013/11/owl-assassination-market-website-are-the-bad-guys-actually-the-good-guys-and-vice-versa/

Disclaimer:  I am not associated with 'Sanjuro's "Assassination Market" in any way.
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From l at odewijk.nl  Mon Nov 25 01:26:43 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 10:26:43 +0100
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

Why suddenly all this attention for yet another assassination market?
Because it's more "hit them and earn the bounty", like at a fair, style?

It's just another something that has to exist if everything is free to
exist. The wait is on for the "Rape her and earn a bounty" kind of....
waiittttttt... that might work....
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From iam at kjro.se  Mon Nov 25 08:00:13 2013
From: iam at kjro.se (Kelly John Rose)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 11:00:13 -0500
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>

On 11/25/2013 4:26 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
> Why suddenly all this attention for yet another assassination market?
> Because it's more "hit them and earn the bounty", like at a fair, style?
> 
> It's just another something that has to exist if everything is free to
> exist. The wait is on for the "Rape her and earn a bounty" kind of....
> waiittttttt... that might work....
> 

I wonder what would happen if multiple people claimed the same date for
the death of a celebrity.

From taralx at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 11:22:29 2013
From: taralx at gmail.com (Taral)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 11:22:29 -0800
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: 

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 1:26 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte
 wrote:
> Why suddenly all this attention for yet another assassination market?
> Because it's more "hit them and earn the bounty", like at a fair, style?

Because people are angry. When people get angry, they start wondering
why the most direct solution doesn't work...

-- 
Taral 
"Please let me know if there's any further trouble I can give you."
    -- Unknown

From grarpamp at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 10:15:21 2013
From: grarpamp at gmail.com (grarpamp)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:15:21 -0500
Subject: [Cryptography] Email is unsecurable
In-Reply-To: <5292E7BB.20601@iang.org>
References: <20131123121801.A3C8926E0D@laptop.kerry-linux.ie>

 <5292E7BB.20601@iang.org>
Message-ID: 

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 1:01 AM, ianG  wrote:
> On 23/11/13 15:30 PM, Ralf Senderek wrote:
>> On Sat, 23 Nov 2013, David Mercer wrote:
>>
>>> But of course you're right about actual current usage, encrypted email
>>> is an
>>> epic fail on that measure regardless of format/protocol.
>>
>> Yes, but it's about time we do something about that. Do we *exactly know
>> why* it is such a failure?
>
> It's an interesting question, and one worth studying for pedagogical
> motives.  From my experiences from both sides, it is clear that both sides
> failed.  But for different reasons.
> Hence, I've concluded that email is unsecurable.

Obviously. It will never be able to escape the non-body
header content and third party routing, storage and analysis with
any form of patching over today's mail. And it's completely
ridiculous that people continue to invest [aka: waste] effort in
'securing' it. The best you'll ever get clients down to is exposing
a single 'To:' header within an antique transport model that
forces you to authenticate to it in order to despam, bill, censor
and control you.

That system is cooked, done and properly fucked. Abandon it.
What the world needs now is a real peer to peer messaging
system that scales. Take Tor for a partial example... so long
as all the sender/recipient nodes [onions] are up, any message
you send will get through, encrypted, in real time. If a recipient
is not up, you queue it locally till they are... no third party ever
needed, and you get lossless delivery and confirmation for free.
Unmemorable node address?, quit crying and make use of your
local address book. Doesn't have plugins for current clients?,
so what, write some and use it if you're dumb enough to mix
the old and new mail.

The only real problem that still needs solved is scalability...
what p2p node lookup systems are out there that will handle
a messaging world's population worth of nodes [billions] and
their keys and tertiary data? If you can do that, you should
be able to get some anon transport over the p2p for free.

Anyway, p2p messaging and anonymous transports have
all been dreamed up by others before. But now is the
time to actually abandon traditional email and just do it.
If you build it, they will come.

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 14:07:18 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 14:07:18 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
Message-ID: <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

________________________________
 From: Kelly John Rose 
To: cypherpunks at cpunks.org 
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market

On 11/25/2013 4:26 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:

>> Why suddenly all this attention for yet another assassination market?
>> Because it's more "hit them and earn the bounty", like at a fair, style?

>I wonder what would happen if multiple people claimed the same date for
>the death of a celebrity.

I haven't read enough of the 'AM' system to know what that system would do, but it seems to me that a logical outcome would be to split the reward based on the size of the contribution included with each prediction.  For instance, if Person A correctly predicted with 1 BTC, and Person B correctly predicted with 9 BTC, Person 1 should get 10% of the reward, while Person B should get 90%.

Incidentally, one problem I see with Sanjuro's 'AM' (Assassination Market) system (at least, so far) is the setting of a minimum bet at 1.0 BTC, which is about $800 when I checked a few seconds ago.  In writing my AP essay, I anticipated that very small bets (say, 10 cents US) would be allowed.  Except in unusual situations, few people would want to donate $800 (USD) to see somebody dead; Far more would be willing to donate $1 (USD) for that.

I don't know if the current minimum bid in 'AM' has something to do with the granularity of 1.0 BTC, but the existence of digits to the right of the decimal point in the prediction totalizations suggests that this is not the case.   If the problem is that the prediction totalization is currently being done manually, rather than automatically, that is a limitation that I think must be fixed in order for 'AM' to operate well.  And with a minimum bet of 1.0 BTC, it might be portrayed as if 'AM' is a tool of the wealthy, rather than that of the average person.

To the extent that this is a problem now, it will be worse as Bitcoin continues to deflate (increase in value) as it was no doubt intended to do.  What happens when 1 BTC = $10,000?   I consider that one of the few disadvantages or problems with Bitcoin is its hyper-deflationary nature:  How can a currency function as a currency, if it is 'scheduled' (by algorithm) to appreciate in value far faster than any commodity?  Another related problem is that Bitcoin is effectively programmed to excessively reward early-adopters.  While I feel that the inventor of Bitcoin should be richly rewarded for doing the work necessary to give us such a beneficial addition to society, the limit of my generosity is about $1 billion (USD).  Ultimately, I think that a replacement for Bitcoin ("Bitcoin 2.0"?) is necessary, one that won't appreciate in value more than, say, 5% per year.
         Jim Bell

Disclaimer:  I am not associated with Sanjuro's 'Assassination Market' in any way.
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From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 15:17:55 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 15:17:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>		<5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>	<1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

I don't agree with your statement, "Bitcoin is only deflationary because the number of people who use it is growing faster than the number of coins in circulation.".   To the contrary, my understanding is that a number of factors have combined with the net result that Bitcoin is hyper-deflationary.  One major factor has been the shift of bitcoin 'mining' from computer CPUs, to video graphics processors (GPU's), to FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), and ultimately ASICs (literally, "application-specific integrated circuits"; what used to be called 'custom' IC's decades ago.)  While I don't have a specific number, I would not be surprised to hear that an ASIC miner is 1000x faster than even the fastest x86 CPU.  If that were the only factor, it would appear that new bitcoins should be 1000x more available than in, say, 2009.  However, I also understand that the 'difficulty' of mining bitcoin has been algorithmically increased regularly, in order
 to make it more difficult to compute to find individual bitcoins.   This is programmed into the entire bitcoin system.  In fact, it is to the point where the limiting factor to the cost of 'mining' bitcoin is the electricity cost of running the machines, not the cost of the machines themselves.  The bitcoin system 'programs' the appreciation of bitcoin by gradually increasing the difficulty of that mining operation.  This translates into an increase in the market value of bitcoin.
In fact, this is essential to the (theoretical) outcome of bitcoin.  I think of it this way:  The system is programmed to only allow the generation of 21 million bitcoins.  If bitcoin is ultimately to be used to run the entire world economy (why not?) there should be at least one million times more.  (Say, 21 TRILLION; 21,000,000,000,000 bitcoins, if we think of the ultimate value of a bitcoin as being roughly equal to the current value of the US dollar, the Euro, the British Pound, etc.)  But since they are limited to 21 million, by algorithm, the value of a 2013 bitcoin will have to be increased by a factor of 1000  to stretch to the task of funding a world's market.  And that means that the 2 million BTC currently in the wallet most likely owned by Satoshi will presumably increase in value to $2 trillion  (USD).  "Nice work if you can get it".
Is this a problem?  Who, instead, would claim that it ISN'T a problem!  Bitcoin has many great features, its possibility (through Zerocoin) of being anonymous one of the most intriguing,  but there is nothing about a digital currency that requires that it deflates at the rate historically associated with bitcoin.  I view this deflation as being arbitrary and capricious, and wildly too large.  Like I've said, I don't begrudge Satoshi $1 billion (USD), but I DO begrudge him $2 trillion.  If Satoshi's bitcoin rescues us from all governments (enabling 'AM'), perhaps he should be entitled to $10 billion (USD), but not $2 trillion (USC).
         Jim Bell

________________________________
 From: David Vorick 
To: Jim Bell  
Cc: Kelly John Rose ; "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market

How do you think something like that could be managed?

Bitcoin is only deflationary because the number of people who use it is growing faster than the number of coins in circulation. But how can you measure the number of people who are using it, and how can you measure how much they are using it? (IE are they speculating, are they actually using it to hide money from their government, are they buying needs like food+water?).

Any cryptocurrency hoping to 'appreciate by at most 5%' has to have some reliable metric for measuring it's value in the real world. Otherwise coin generation algorithms are just a shot in the dark, hoping to mimic the expected growth of the coin or having some authority that can provide input about it's real dollar value. And anything that tries to get insider metrics will need some defence against liars and sybil attacks.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:07 PM, Jim Bell  wrote:

>
>
>
>
>________________________________
> From: Kelly John Rose 
>To: cypherpunks at cpunks.org 
>Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 8:00 AM
>Subject: Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
> 
>
>On 11/25/2013 4:26 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
>
>>> Why suddenly all this attention for yet another assassination market?
>>> Because it's more "hit them and earn the bounty", like at a fair, style?
> 
>
>>I wonder what would happen if multiple people claimed the same date for
>>the death of a celebrity.
>
>I haven't read enough of the 'AM' system to know what that system would do, but it seems to me that a logical outcome would be to split the reward based on the size of the contribution included with each prediction.  For instance, if Person A correctly predicted with 1 BTC, and Person B correctly predicted with 9 BTC, Person 1 should get 10% of the reward, while Person B should get 90%.
>
>Incidentally, one problem I see with Sanjuro's 'AM' (Assassination Market) system (at least, so far) is the setting of a minimum bet at 1.0 BTC, which is about
 $800 when I checked a few seconds ago.  In writing my AP essay, I anticipated that very small bets (say, 10 cents US) would be allowed.  Except in unusual situations, few people would want to donate $800 (USD) to see somebody dead; Far more would be willing to donate $1 (USD) for that.
>  
>I don't know if the current minimum bid in 'AM' has something to do with the granularity of 1.0 BTC, but the existence of digits to the right of the decimal point in the prediction totalizations suggests that this is not the case.   If the problem is that the prediction totalization is currently being done manually, rather than automatically, that is a limitation that I think must be fixed in order for 'AM' to operate well.  And with a minimum bet of 1.0 BTC, it might be portrayed as if 'AM' is a tool of the wealthy, rather than that of the average person.
>
>To the extent that this is a problem now, it will be worse as Bitcoin
 continues to deflate (increase in value) as it was no doubt intended to do.  What happens when 1 BTC = $10,000?   I consider that one of the few disadvantages or problems with Bitcoin is its hyper-deflationary nature:  How can a currency function as a currency, if it is 'scheduled' (by algorithm) to appreciate in value far faster than any commodity?  Another related problem is that Bitcoin is effectively programmed to excessively reward early-adopters.  While I feel that the inventor of Bitcoin should be richly rewarded for doing the work necessary to give us such a beneficial addition to society, the limit of my generosity is about $1 billion (USD).  Ultimately, I think that a replacement for Bitcoin ("Bitcoin 2.0"?) is necessary, one that won't appreciate in value more than, say, 5% per year.
>         Jim Bell
>
>
>Disclaimer:  I am not associated with Sanjuro's
 'Assassination Market' in any way.
>
>
>
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From adi at hexapodia.org  Mon Nov 25 16:32:04 2013
From: adi at hexapodia.org (Andy Isaacson)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 16:32:04 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 07:04:51PM -0500, David Vorick wrote:
> Your problem is if bitcoin becomes a world economy. That means bitcoins
> usage grows by something like 2 orders of magnitude. Except that bitcoins
> are already halfway mined, which means that the circulation will not keep
> up. That is what drives the price up.
> 
> If you want a currency that will scale with it's global usage (IE when the
> market cap hits $21 trillion, there are 21 trillion in circulation), you
> need some mechanism that knows how to equate 1 bitcoin to 1 dollar, that
> way more bitcoins can be printed as the market cap goes up.

Fractional bitcoins work just fine (down to 1/100,000,000, per
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi ).  If BTC goes to 100,000 USD we'll
just start pricing things in "thous" or "mils" or something similar.

In other words, there are already 12 quadrillion Satoshis in
circulation, plenty to absorb any further deflation.

-andy

From david.vorick at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 14:20:12 2013
From: david.vorick at gmail.com (David Vorick)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 17:20:12 -0500
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

How do you think something like that could be managed?

Bitcoin is only deflationary because the number of people who use it is
growing faster than the number of coins in circulation. But how can you
measure the number of people who are using it, and how can you measure how
much they are using it? (IE are they speculating, are they actually using
it to hide money from their government, are they buying needs like
food+water?).

Any cryptocurrency hoping to 'appreciate by at most 5%' has to have some
reliable metric for measuring it's value in the real world. Otherwise coin
generation algorithms are just a shot in the dark, hoping to mimic the
expected growth of the coin or having some authority that can provide input
about it's real dollar value. And anything that tries to get insider
metrics will need some defence against liars and sybil attacks.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:07 PM, Jim Bell  wrote:

>
>
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* Kelly John Rose 
> *To:* cypherpunks at cpunks.org
> *Sent:* Monday, November 25, 2013 8:00 AM
> *Subject:* Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
>
> On 11/25/2013 4:26 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
>
> >> Why suddenly all this attention for yet another assassination market?
> >> Because it's more "hit them and earn the bounty", like at a fair, style?
>
> >I wonder what would happen if multiple people claimed the same date for
> >the death of a celebrity.
>
> I haven't read enough of the 'AM' system to know what that system would
> do, but it seems to me that a logical outcome would be to split the reward
> based on the size of the contribution included with each prediction.  For
> instance, if Person A correctly predicted with 1 BTC, and Person B
> correctly predicted with 9 BTC, Person 1 should get 10% of the reward,
> while Person B should get 90%.
>
> Incidentally, one problem I see with Sanjuro's 'AM' (Assassination Market)
> system (at least, so far) is the setting of a minimum bet at 1.0 BTC, which
> is about $800 when I checked a few seconds ago.  In writing my AP essay, I
> anticipated that very small bets (say, 10 cents US) would be allowed.
> Except in unusual situations, few people would want to donate $800 (USD) to
> see somebody dead; Far more would be willing to donate $1 (USD) for that.
>
> I don't know if the current minimum bid in 'AM' has something to do with
> the granularity of 1.0 BTC, but the existence of digits to the right of the
> decimal point in the prediction totalizations suggests that this is not the
> case.   If the problem is that the prediction totalization is currently
> being done manually, rather than automatically, that is a limitation that I
> think must be fixed in order for 'AM' to operate well.  And with a minimum
> bet of 1.0 BTC, it might be portrayed as if 'AM' is a tool of the wealthy,
> rather than that of the average person.
>
> To the extent that this is a problem now, it will be worse as Bitcoin
> continues to deflate (increase in value) as it was no doubt intended to
> do.  What happens when 1 BTC = $10,000?   I consider that one of the few
> disadvantages or problems with Bitcoin is its hyper-deflationary nature:
> How can a currency function as a currency, if it is 'scheduled' (by
> algorithm) to appreciate in value far faster than any commodity?  Another
> related problem is that Bitcoin is effectively programmed to excessively
> reward early-adopters.  While I feel that the inventor of Bitcoin should be
> richly rewarded for doing the work necessary to give us such a beneficial
> addition to society, the limit of my generosity is about $1 billion (USD).
> Ultimately, I think that a replacement for Bitcoin ("Bitcoin 2.0"?) is
> necessary, one that won't appreciate in value more than, say, 5% per year.
>          Jim Bell
>
>
> Disclaimer:  I am not associated with Sanjuro's 'Assassination Market' in
> any way.
>
>
>
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From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 17:29:26 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 17:29:26 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>		<5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>	<1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>		<1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: <1385429366.34530.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Well, I don't see how I've "validated [your] statement".  You said the ONLY reason bitcoin is deflationary "because the number of people who use it is growing faster than the number of coins in circulation".   I'd say, to the contrary, that the limitation on the circulation of BTC is 'baked into the cake' of bitcoin itself:  It is algorithmically determined by the 'policy' built into the design of bitcoin.  That limitation on bitcoin was set long ago, long before most people understood what bitcoin was (secretly) intended to do.  And, since the 'cost' of mining yet another bitcoin is automatically adjusted, to greatly increase over the lifetime of the mining of bitcoin, 'blame' for the deflation should be assigned to the person who designed the algorithms.
I think at this point 'we' (the public; or at least the experts on bitcoin) understand that in principle, it would be possible to 'design' a new digital currency, call it "Bitcoin 2.0", which is specifically designed to not appreciate (nor depreciate) dramatically.  Part of the advantage they will have is that it won't be necessary to compensate for ease-of-mining represented by the transition through the CPU/GPU/FPGA/ASIC eras:  Everybody will 'start' with a level playing field, ASIC's.  The number of 'Bitcoin 2.0's could be set to approximately 20 trillion, if it is limited at all, and there will be no dramatic increases in the 'difficulty' of mining them, over the lifetime of the mining.  Because the difficulty will not appreciably increase, their value will also not appreciably increase.  It would certainly not increase so much so as to dissuade people from spending them.

         Jim Bell  

________________________________
 From: David Vorick 
To: Jim Bell  
Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" ; "iam at kjro.se"  
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market

You've validated my statement.

Your problem is if bitcoin becomes a world economy. That means bitcoins usage grows by something like 2 orders of magnitude. Except that bitcoins are already halfway mined, which means that the circulation will not keep up. That is what drives the price up.

If you want a currency that will scale with it's global usage (IE when the market cap hits $21 trillion, there are 21 trillion in circulation), you need some mechanism that knows how to equate 1 bitcoin to 1 dollar, that way more bitcoins can be printed as the market cap goes up.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:17 PM, Jim Bell  wrote:

I don't agree with your statement, "Bitcoin is only deflationary because the number of people who use it is growing faster than the number of coins in circulation.".   To the contrary, my understanding is that a number of factors have combined with the net result that Bitcoin is hyper-deflationary.  One major factor has been the shift of bitcoin 'mining' from computer CPUs, to video graphics processors (GPU's), to FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), and ultimately ASICs (literally, "application-specific integrated circuits"; what used to be called 'custom' IC's decades ago.)  While I don't have a specific number, I would not be surprised to hear that an ASIC miner is 1000x faster than even the fastest x86 CPU.  If that were the only factor, it would appear that new bitcoins should be 1000x more available than in, say, 2009.  However, I also understand that the 'difficulty' of mining bitcoin has been algorithmically increased regularly, in order
 to make it more difficult to compute to find individual bitcoins.   This is programmed into the entire bitcoin system.  In fact, it is to the point where the limiting factor to the cost of 'mining' bitcoin is the electricity cost of running the machines, not the cost of the machines themselves.  The bitcoin system 'programs' the appreciation of bitcoin by gradually increasing the difficulty of that mining operation.  This translates into an increase in the market value of bitcoin.
>In fact, this is essential to the (theoretical) outcome of bitcoin.  I think of it this way:  The system is programmed to only allow the generation of 21 million bitcoins.  If bitcoin is ultimately to be used to run the entire world economy (why not?) there should be at least one
 million times more.  (Say, 21 TRILLION; 21,000,000,000,000 bitcoins, if we think of the ultimate value of a bitcoin as being roughly equal to the current value of the US dollar, the Euro, the British Pound, etc.)  But since they are limited to 21 million, by algorithm, the value of a 2013 bitcoin will have to be increased by a factor of 1000  to stretch to the task of funding a world's market.  And that means that the 2 million BTC currently in the wallet most likely owned by Satoshi will presumably increase in value to $2 trillion  (USD).  "Nice work if you can get it".
>Is this a problem?  Who, instead, would claim that it ISN'T a problem!  Bitcoin has many great features, its possibility (through Zerocoin) of being anonymous one of the most intriguing,  but there is nothing about a digital currency that requires that it deflates at the rate historically associated with bitcoin.  I view this
 deflation as being arbitrary and capricious, and wildly too large.  Like I've said, I don't begrudge Satoshi $1 billion (USD), but I DO begrudge him $2 trillion.  If Satoshi's bitcoin rescues us from all governments (enabling 'AM'), perhaps he should be entitled to $10 billion (USD), but not $2 trillion (USC).
>         Jim Bell
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
> 
>From: David Vorick 
>To: Jim Bell  
>Cc: Kelly John Rose ; "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
>Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 2:20 PM
>
>Subject: Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
>
>
>
>How do you think something like that could be managed?
>
>Bitcoin is only deflationary because the number of people who use it is growing faster than the number of coins in circulation. But how can you measure the number of people who are using it, and how can you measure how much they are using it? (IE are they speculating, are they actually using it to hide money from their government, are they buying needs like food+water?).
>
>Any cryptocurrency hoping to 'appreciate by at most 5%' has to have some reliable metric for measuring it's value in the real world. Otherwise coin generation algorithms are just a shot in the dark, hoping to mimic the expected growth of the coin or having some authority that can provide input about it's real dollar value. And anything that tries to get insider metrics will need some defence against liars and sybil attacks.
>
>
>
>
>On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:07 PM, Jim Bell  wrote:
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>________________________________
>> From: Kelly John Rose 
>>To: cypherpunks at cpunks.org 
>>Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 8:00 AM
>>Subject: Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
>> 
>>
>>On 11/25/2013 4:26 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
>>
>>>> Why suddenly all this attention for yet another assassination market?
>>>> Because it's more "hit them and earn the bounty", like at a fair, style?
>> 
>>
>>>I wonder what would happen if multiple people claimed the same date for
>>>the death of a celebrity.
>>
>>I haven't read enough of the 'AM' system to know what that system would do, but it seems to me that a logical outcome would be to split the reward based on the size of the contribution included with each prediction.  For instance, if Person A correctly predicted with 1 BTC, and Person B correctly predicted with 9 BTC, Person 1 should get 10% of the reward, while Person B should get 90%.
>>
>>Incidentally, one problem I see with Sanjuro's 'AM' (Assassination Market) system (at least, so far) is the setting of a minimum bet at 1.0 BTC, which is about
 $800 when I checked a few seconds ago.  In writing my AP essay, I anticipated that very small bets (say, 10 cents US) would be allowed.  Except in unusual situations, few people would want to donate $800 (USD) to see somebody dead; Far more would be willing to donate $1 (USD) for that.
>>  
>>I don't know if the current minimum bid in 'AM' has something to do with the granularity of 1.0 BTC, but the existence of digits to the right of the decimal point in the prediction totalizations suggests that this is not the case.   If the problem is that the prediction totalization is currently being done manually, rather than automatically, that is a limitation that I think must be fixed in order for 'AM' to operate well.  And with a minimum bet of 1.0 BTC, it might be portrayed as if 'AM' is a tool of the wealthy, rather than that of the average person.
>>
>>To the extent that this is a problem now, it will be worse as Bitcoin
 continues to deflate (increase in value) as it was no doubt intended to do.  What happens when 1 BTC = $10,000?   I consider that one of the few disadvantages or problems with Bitcoin is its hyper-deflationary nature:  How can a currency function as a currency, if it is 'scheduled' (by algorithm) to appreciate in value far faster than any commodity?  Another related problem is that Bitcoin is effectively programmed to excessively reward early-adopters.  While I feel that the inventor of Bitcoin should be richly rewarded for doing the work necessary to give us such a beneficial addition to society, the limit of my generosity is about $1 billion (USD).  Ultimately, I think that a replacement for Bitcoin ("Bitcoin 2.0"?) is necessary, one that won't appreciate in value more than, say, 5% per year.
>>         Jim Bell
>>
>>
>>Disclaimer:  I am not associated with Sanjuro's
 'Assassination Market' in any way.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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From seanl at literati.org  Mon Nov 25 17:34:17 2013
From: seanl at literati.org (Sean Lynch)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 17:34:17 -0800
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> (Jim
 Bell's message of "Mon, 25 Nov 2013 15:17:55 -0800 (PST)")
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

On Mon, Nov 25 2013, Jim Bell wrote:

> I don't agree with your statement, "Bitcoin is only deflationary
> because the number of people who use it is growing faster than the
> number of coins in circulation.".   To the contrary, my understanding
> is that a number of factors have combined with the net result that
> Bitcoin is hyper-deflationary.  One major factor has been the shift
> of bitcoin 'mining' from computer CPUs, to video graphics processors
> (GPU's), to FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), and ultimately
> ASICs (literally, "application-specific integrated circuits"; what
> used to be called 'custom' IC's decades ago.)  While I don't have a
> specific number, I would not be surprised to hear that an ASIC miner
> is 1000x faster than even the fastest x86 CPU.  If that were the only
> factor, it would appear that new bitcoins should be 1000x more
> available than in, say, 2009.  However, I also understand that the
> 'difficulty' of mining bitcoin has been algorithmically increased
> regularly, in order to make it more difficult to compute to find
> individual bitcoins.   This is programmed into the entire bitcoin
> system.  In fact, it is to the point where the limiting factor to the
> cost of 'mining' bitcoin is the electricity cost of running the
> machines, not the cost of the machines themselves.  The bitcoin
> system 'programs' the appreciation of bitcoin by gradually increasing
> the difficulty of that mining operation.  This translates into an
> increase in the market value of bitcoin.
> In fact, this is essential to the (theoretical) outcome of bitcoin. 
> I think of it this way:  The system is programmed to only allow the
> generation of 21 million bitcoins.  If bitcoin is ultimately to be
> used to run the entire world economy (why not?) there should be at
> least one million times more.  (Say, 21 TRILLION; 21,000,000,000,000
> bitcoins, if we think of the ultimate value of a bitcoin as being
> roughly equal to the current value of the US dollar, the Euro, the
> British Pound, etc.)  But since they are limited to 21 million, by
> algorithm, the value of a 2013 bitcoin will have to be increased by a
> factor of 1000  to stretch to the task of funding a world's market. 
> And that means that the 2 million BTC currently in the wallet most
> likely owned by Satoshi will presumably increase in value to $2
> trillion  (USD).  "Nice work if you can get it".
> Is this a problem?  Who, instead, would claim that it ISN'T a
> problem!  Bitcoin has many great features, its possibility (through
> Zerocoin) of being anonymous one of the most intriguing,  but there
> is nothing about a digital currency that requires that it deflates at
> the rate historically associated with bitcoin.  I view this deflation
> as being arbitrary and capricious, and wildly too large.  Like I've
> said, I don't begrudge Satoshi $1 billion (USD), but I DO begrudge
> him $2 trillion.  If Satoshi's bitcoin rescues us from all
> governments (enabling 'AM'), perhaps he should be entitled to $10
> billion (USD), but not $2 trillion (USC).
>          Jim Bell

I'm far less concerned about Satoshi Nakamoto's ending up a trillionaire
than I am about central banks' ability to print money to enrich their
friends at will. It's also unrealistic to require that every alternative
currency that appears be able to absorb the entire world economy; why
can't a cryptocurrency just be one of many options available? I'm hoping
Bitcoin is even just one of many *cryptocurrencies*
available. Monocultures are fragile.

-- 
Sean Richard Lynch 
http://www.literati.org/~seanl/

From seanl at literati.org  Mon Nov 25 17:50:27 2013
From: seanl at literati.org (Sean Lynch)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 17:50:27 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
 (Javier Liendo's message of "Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:04:56 -0600")
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <87siukrkws.fsf@literati.org>

On Mon, Nov 25 2013, Javier Liendo wrote:

> isn't the real problem with bitcoin becoming a global currency an
> issue of how to best manage the potential exponential growth in size
> of the blockchain? 
>
> i know this is cypherpunks but please explain like i'm five...

Hopefully Moore's Law will save us, but I actually expect that, should
Bitcoin continue to grow, most payments will be made through payment
services of some kind, with the actual transactions only used to deposit
money in your account with the payment service. This is analogous to how
gold was used once banking became popular.

Should these payment services become full-fledged banks, they could help
with the deflation problem as well by engaging in fractional reserve
banking, the same way banks did with gold. Many people have a negative
impression of fractional reserve banking, but in fact most of the
instability experienced in the US was actually caused by restrictions on
branching and requirements that banks invest in the debt of states that
kept defaulting. Bank failures were much rarer in countries without
these requirements. For example, Canada had *zero* bank failures during
the Great Depression and only created a central bank for the purpose of
facilitating international payments, so that Canadian banks and
businesses didn't need accounts in London.

-- 
Sean Richard Lynch 
http://www.literati.org/~seanl/

From coderman at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 17:54:35 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 17:54:35 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: 

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:43 PM, David Vorick  wrote:
> ... How do you prevent the early adopters from becoming stupid
> wealthy if the currency takes off?

high risk, high reward.

why should early adoption with high risk not pay more than late
adoption with significantly less risk?

i agree that the externals affecting BTC exchange rate are volatile
and annoying, but this hardly seems like bitcoin's fault.  do you
fight tulpenmanie with currency controls?  good luck!

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 18:01:46 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:01:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <1385431306.85023.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

The use of CPU 'effort' as 'earning' bitcoins (or other electronic currency) was a good idea.  Problem is, there's plenty of electricity being wasted in the process.  It seems to me that it should be possible to develop some sort of use for this dedicated CPU effort.  What's a major use of CPU power?  One is weather forecasting, another is simulations of various kinds.  These use huge amounts of computer-time, and if they are made to be sufficiently divisible people could earn digital-coin by doing things that are actually valuable in and of themselves.

    Jim Bell

________________________________
 From: David Vorick 
To: Javier Liendo  
Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

Bitcoin has a lot of problems.

Andy, the problem isn't the denomination, the problem is that Satioshi has 5% of all the currency, and the Winklevoss twins have another 0.5%. If bitcoin becomes worth 100 trillion dollars, they've got a solid 500 billion for being nobody and doing nothing. That's a problem to me.

Another problem with bitcoin is that the blockchain won't scale. Another problem is that nobody knows how to price transaction fees. And then there's the selfish mining problem.

I think though that we'll see other cryptocurrencies that solve these problems. Bitcoin is overinflated, and while the current alt coins aren't offering much in the way of competition.

I'm working on one right now. It's not built but the idea is to use proof-of-contribution instead of proof-of-work, where contribution is disk storage contributed to a distributed network. The disk storage is used to house the blockchain, but it can also be sold on a market for people to use. Theoretically, this gives people a way to price the currency (using the value of cloud storage vs. the price of storage on the network using the network currency).

The tricky part is preventing cheating, but I think I have a decent solution.

I don't however know a good way to distribute currency to the network, for the problems I was explaining to Jim Bell. Storage is currently getting cheaper at an exponential rate, and I have no idea how to predict the volume of users over time, nor a good way to measure the volume of users as immune to sybil attacks. How do you prevent the early adopters from becoming stupid wealthy if the currency takes off?
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From coderman at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 18:20:27 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:20:27 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: 

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:12 PM, David Vorick  wrote:
> ...
> Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the
> petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else...
> But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the
> price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of
> storing data on the network.

i like the idea of "proof of _useful_ work" applied here to storage.
if only mining had been applied to BOINC, GIMPS, or *@home efforts...

surely there is prior art?

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 18:24:19 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:24:19 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <1385432659.12245.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

________________________________
 From: coderman 
To: David Vorick  
Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:43 PM, David Vorick  wrote:

>> ... How do you prevent the early adopters from becoming stupid
>> wealthy if the currency takes off?
>high risk, high reward.
>why should early adoption with high risk not pay more than late
>adoption with significantly less risk?

I certainly agree with 'high risk, high reward'.  But that begs the question of, 'how much risk v. how much reward?'.  I've already said that I fully agree that Satoshi should get $1 billion for what he's done.  (More, if BTC fully enables a system like Sanjuro's 'AM').  But, he's getting close to that level now, and everything I understand about bitcoin is that he isn't going to sell his BTC's, so he will get far more than that over the next few years.  _THAT_ level of 'reward' is absolutely uncalled-for, and I think when the public learns of that, there will be a great deal of anger.  If such a payoff were absolutely necessary to launch bitcoin, and there were no alternatives, I'd grudgingly say "yes".  But, I can imagine a digital currency with far-less early-adopter bias.  This is particularly true today:  We all know that the world needs something like BTC.  At this point, how much real 'risk' would there be in a new digital currency? 
 Far less than BTC.
        Jim Bell
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From albill at openbuddha.com  Mon Nov 25 18:25:58 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:25:58 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: 

I suggest reading http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin instead of reinventing the wheel here. All of this has been discussed, ad nauseum, there and a few other forums.

We don’t live in a perfect world and people will always attempt to game the system to make themselves rich. The problem other alt currencies have is why would anyone adopt them when bitcoin is already there and clearly (somewhat) successful? Why mine litecoin, for example, when if I mine bitcoin (or even buy them), I make money for sure (for now at least)?

From: David Vorick David Vorick
Reply: David Vorick david.vorick at gmail.com
Date: November 25, 2013 at 6:19:10 PM
To: coderman coderman at gmail.com
Subject:  Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)  
As I was telling Jayvan, the idea would be that early adopters use the currency for its inherent uses to them, as opposed to its speculative potential.

Right now, bitcoin is almost exclusively speculative. It's worth a lot of money because the value has been increasing consistently. That's tulipmania.

In a perfect world you would have some way to protect a currency against speculation. The volatility in bitcoin makes it less useful as a currency, therefore the speculation is damaging bitcoin.

I don't have a solution, and I'm not suggesting one, I'm merely suggesting that a solution might exist that would be a substantial improvement.

If bitcoin was based on something that had inherent value, say cloud storage, then a spike in value would be followed by a spike in the amount of storage being contributed to the network (bitcoin currently does this, a spike in price is followed by a spike in mining). The key here though is that the network would be protect from dramatic dips in value. When bitcoin drops in price, all of the abundant mining does nothing to save bitcoin, because the bitcoin mining doesn't actually add any value to the network. Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else.

But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of storing data on the network. That's something that actually has use, and so people would let the price fall unreasonably low (instead they would find a way to make use of the cheap storage). This would allow the currency to ride arbitrary spikes in price while being protected against arbitrary drops in price.

Jim, the amount of mining being done on the bitcoin network has no impact on the price. The price might have an impact on the volume of mining, but because the mining is specific to the bitcoin network (double sha2 hashing or something like that) it can't be sold or used for other applications. Bitcoin mining is only good for bitcoin mining, which means the demand for the mining is exclusively based on value of the bitcoins being mined every day.

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From seanl at literati.org  Mon Nov 25 18:39:49 2013
From: seanl at literati.org (Sean Lynch)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:39:49 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385431306.85023.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> (Jim
 Bell's message of "Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:01:46 -0800 (PST)")
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <1385431306.85023.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <87zjorrimi.fsf@literati.org>

On Mon, Nov 25 2013, Jim Bell wrote:

> The use of CPU 'effort' as 'earning' bitcoins (or other electronic
> currency) was a good idea.  Problem is, there's plenty of electricity
> being wasted in the process.  It seems to me that it should be
> possible to develop some sort of use for this dedicated CPU effort. 
> What's a major use of CPU power?  One is weather forecasting, another
> is simulations of various kinds.  These use huge amounts of
> computer-time, and if they are made to be sufficiently divisible
> people could earn digital-coin by doing things that are actually
> valuable in and of themselves.
>     Jim Bell

I am less concerned about this waste than most people seem to
be. People don't complain about the wasted effort of all the runners or
politicians who didn't win the race, and that's basically what it is.

But if we do want to replace Bitcoin's mining function, we need to come
up with something that can be verified in a distributed fashion, is not
likely to suddenly be made trivial by a major breakthrough, and whose
difficulty can be easily adjusted according to some difficulty
algorithm. Primecoin is the best candidate I've seen so far, though
admittedly I haven't been looking that closely at altcoins, because like
I said I don't consider the electricity "wasted" on the mining race to
be a big deal.

A closer analogy might be trading algorithms.

-- 
Sean Richard Lynch 
http://www.literati.org/~seanl/
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From joe_wang at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 18:40:42 2013
From: joe_wang at yahoo.com (Joe Wang)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:40:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <1385433642.5415.YahooMailNeo@web160702.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

I believe all currencies and crosses are constantly being speculated day-in and day-out.  So  I wouldn't be surprised or worry too much about Bitcoin being speculated.  As long as the market has liquidity and healthy supply/demand it shouldn't be of a problem.  

About our point about bitcoin not having any inherent value, isn't energy exerted to mine those coins costs involved?  Hence if people begin to mine more for bitcoins then the cost of energy will go up as difficulty of mining goes up as well.  This is the same concept to your cloud storage example.  

I disagree the mining part has nothing to do with bitcoin prices.  Its like saying supply and demand does not affect a price of a goods being sold.  In your example of falling price on Bitcoin (or any other currency) would probably be contributed to liquidity issue.  If no one wants something or all the buyers are not making the bid doesn't matter what kind of scheme you use the price will fall and will fall hard.  This goes for everything in this world. Tulip, Gold, Silver, Copper, etc.  But when the price fall doesn't mean the product itself lacks value.  Last I remembered I still had to pay for that basket of tulips I sent for mothers day.

-Joe

________________________________
 From: David Vorick 
To: coderman  
Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

As I was telling Jayvan, the idea would be that early adopters use the currency for its inherent uses to them, as opposed to its speculative potential.

Right now, bitcoin is almost exclusively speculative. It's worth a lot of money because the value has been increasing consistently. That's tulipmania.

In a perfect world you would have some way to protect a currency against speculation. The volatility in bitcoin makes it less useful as a currency, therefore the speculation is damaging bitcoin.

I don't have a solution, and I'm not suggesting one, I'm merely suggesting that a solution might exist that would be a substantial improvement.

If bitcoin was based on something that had inherent value, say cloud storage, then a spike in value would be followed by a spike in the amount of storage being contributed to the network (bitcoin currently does this, a spike in price is followed by a spike in mining). The key here though is that the network would be protect from dramatic dips in value. When bitcoin drops in price, all of the abundant mining does nothing to save bitcoin, because the bitcoin mining doesn't actually add any value to the network. Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else.

But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of storing data on the network. That's something that actually has use, and so people would let the price fall unreasonably low (instead they would find a way to make use of the cheap storage). This would allow the currency to ride arbitrary spikes in price while being protected against arbitrary drops in price.

Jim, the amount of mining being done on the bitcoin network has no impact on the price. The price might have an impact on the volume of mining, but because the mining is specific to the bitcoin network (double sha2 hashing or something like that) it can't be sold or used for other applications. Bitcoin mining is only good for bitcoin mining, which means the demand for the mining is exclusively based on value of the bitcoins being mined every day.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 8:54 PM, coderman  wrote:

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:43 PM, David Vorick  wrote:
>> ... How do you prevent the early adopters from becoming stupid
>
>> wealthy if the currency takes off?
>
>high risk, high reward.
>
>why should early adoption with high risk not pay more than late
>adoption with significantly less risk?
>
>
>i agree that the externals affecting BTC exchange rate are volatile
>and annoying, but this hardly seems like bitcoin's fault.  do you
>fight tulpenmanie with currency controls?  good luck!
>
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From adi at hexapodia.org  Mon Nov 25 18:43:07 2013
From: adi at hexapodia.org (Andy Isaacson)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:43:07 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <20131126024307.GO7523@hexapodia.org>

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 06:20:27PM -0800, coderman wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:12 PM, David Vorick  wrote:
> > ...
> > Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the
> > petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else...
> > But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the
> > price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of
> > storing data on the network.
> 
> i like the idea of "proof of _useful_ work" applied here to storage.
> if only mining had been applied to BOINC, GIMPS, or *@home efforts...

The critical feature of the BTC PoW block chain is that the work is
applied to a believed-computationally-hard problem that is a function of
the block under consideration.  This precludes the "work" being a
function of any other property.

> surely there is prior art?

How quickly we forget ... Bitcoin did 4 impossible things before
breakfast, and now we're whining that it didn't do 5. :)

In 2008 nobody in the open research community would have proposed that a
peer-to-peer (1) autoscaling (2) computational PoW (3) deflationary (4)
space-conserving cryptocurrency was even theoretically possible.  Then
Nakamoto dropped working code and the paper.

Adding a "useful work" unit to the mining PoW has been considered; it's
extremely hard to do and puts the "useful work" project (whatever it is)
squarely in the line of fire for fraudsters and attacks.

-andy

From joe_wang at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 18:46:40 2013
From: joe_wang at yahoo.com (Joe Wang)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:46:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <1385434000.85604.YahooMailNeo@web160703.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

I think its important that new alt coins being introduced.  Not that it confuses the market.  But to keep innovation going.  Creating specialized coins with different characteristics would only help the entire market move forward.  Its like the car industry in its infancy.  How many car companies were out there at the time when people were trading in their horse carriages with 4 wheels + a motor? 

-Joe

________________________________
 From: Al Billings 
To: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:25 AM
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

I suggest reading http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin instead of reinventing the wheel here. All of this has been discussed, ad nauseum, there and a few other forums.

We don’t live in a perfect world and people will always attempt to game the system to make themselves rich. The problem other alt currencies have is why would anyone adopt them when bitcoin is already there and clearly (somewhat) successful? Why mine litecoin, for example, when if I mine bitcoin (or even buy them), I make money for sure (for now at least)?

________________________________
From: David Vorick David Vorick
Reply: David Vorick david.vorick at gmail.com
Date: November 25, 2013 at 6:19:10 PM
To: coderman coderman at gmail.com
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market) 

As I was telling Jayvan, the idea would be that early adopters
use the currency for its inherent uses to them, as opposed to its
speculative potential.

Right now, bitcoin is almost exclusively speculative. It's worth a
lot of money because the value has been increasing consistently.
That's tulipmania.

In a perfect world you would have some way to protect a currency
against speculation. The volatility in bitcoin makes it less useful
as a currency, therefore the speculation is damaging bitcoin.

I don't have a solution, and I'm not suggesting one, I'm merely
suggesting that a solution might exist that would be a substantial
improvement.

If bitcoin was based on something that had inherent value, say
cloud storage, then a spike in value would be followed by a spike
in the amount of storage being contributed to the network (bitcoin
currently does this, a spike in price is followed by a spike in
mining). The key here though is that the network would be protect
from dramatic dips in value. When bitcoin drops in price, all of
the abundant mining does nothing to save bitcoin, because the
bitcoin mining doesn't actually add any value to the network.
Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the
petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else.

But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in
the price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the
cost of storing data on the network. That's something that actually
has use, and so people would let the price fall unreasonably low
(instead they would find a way to make use of the cheap storage).
This would allow the currency to ride arbitrary spikes in price
while being protected against arbitrary drops in price.

Jim, the amount of mining being done on the bitcoin network has no
impact on the price. The price might have an impact on the volume
of mining, but because the mining is specific to the bitcoin
network (double sha2 hashing or something like that) it can't be
sold or used for other applications. Bitcoin mining is only good
for bitcoin mining, which means the demand for the mining is
exclusively based on value of the bitcoins being mined every
day.
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From david.vorick at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 16:04:51 2013
From: david.vorick at gmail.com (David Vorick)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:04:51 -0500
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

You've validated my statement.

Your problem is if bitcoin becomes a world economy. That means bitcoins
usage grows by something like 2 orders of magnitude. Except that bitcoins
are already halfway mined, which means that the circulation will not keep
up. That is what drives the price up.

If you want a currency that will scale with it's global usage (IE when the
market cap hits $21 trillion, there are 21 trillion in circulation), you
need some mechanism that knows how to equate 1 bitcoin to 1 dollar, that
way more bitcoins can be printed as the market cap goes up.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:17 PM, Jim Bell  wrote:

> I don't agree with your statement, "Bitcoin is only deflationary because
> the number of people who use it is growing faster than the number of coins
> in circulation.".   To the contrary, my understanding is that a number of
> factors have combined with the net result that Bitcoin is
> hyper-deflationary.  One major factor has been the shift of bitcoin
> 'mining' from computer CPUs, to video graphics processors (GPU's), to FPGA
> (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), and ultimately ASICs (literally,
> "application-specific integrated circuits"; what used to be called 'custom'
> IC's decades ago.)  While I don't have a specific number, I would not be
> surprised to hear that an ASIC miner is 1000x faster than even the fastest
> x86 CPU.  If that were the only factor, it would appear that new bitcoins
> should be 1000x more available than in, say, 2009.  However, I also
> understand that the 'difficulty' of mining bitcoin has been algorithmically
> increased regularly, in order to make it more difficult to compute to find
> individual bitcoins.   This is programmed into the entire bitcoin system.
> In fact, it is to the point where the limiting factor to the cost of
> 'mining' bitcoin is the electricity cost of running the machines, not the
> cost of the machines themselves.  The bitcoin system 'programs' the
> appreciation of bitcoin by gradually increasing the difficulty of that
> mining operation.  This translates into an increase in the market value of
> bitcoin.
> In fact, this is essential to the (theoretical) outcome of bitcoin.  I
> think of it this way:  The system is programmed to only allow the
> generation of 21 million bitcoins.  If bitcoin is ultimately to be used to
> run the entire world economy (why not?) there should be at least one
> million times more.  (Say, 21 TRILLION; 21,000,000,000,000 bitcoins, if we
> think of the ultimate value of a bitcoin as being roughly equal to the
> current value of the US dollar, the Euro, the British Pound, etc.)  But
> since they are limited to 21 million, by algorithm, the value of a 2013
> bitcoin will have to be increased by a factor of 1000  to stretch to the
> task of funding a world's market.  And that means that the 2 million BTC
> currently in the wallet most likely owned by Satoshi will presumably
> increase in value to $2 trillion  (USD).  "Nice work if you can get it".
> Is this a problem?  Who, instead, would claim that it ISN'T a problem!
> Bitcoin has many great features, its possibility (through Zerocoin) of
> being anonymous one of the most intriguing,  but there is nothing about a
> digital currency that requires that it deflates at the rate historically
> associated with bitcoin.  I view this deflation as being arbitrary and
> capricious, and wildly too large.  Like I've said, I don't begrudge Satoshi
> $1 billion (USD), but I DO begrudge him $2 trillion.  If Satoshi's bitcoin
> rescues us from all governments (enabling 'AM'), perhaps he should be
> entitled to $10 billion (USD), but not $2 trillion (USC).
>          Jim Bell
>
>
>
>
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* David Vorick 
> *To:* Jim Bell 
> *Cc:* Kelly John Rose ; "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" <
> cypherpunks at cpunks.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, November 25, 2013 2:20 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
>
> How do you think something like that could be managed?
>
> Bitcoin is only deflationary because the number of people who use it is
> growing faster than the number of coins in circulation. But how can you
> measure the number of people who are using it, and how can you measure how
> much they are using it? (IE are they speculating, are they actually using
> it to hide money from their government, are they buying needs like
> food+water?).
>
> Any cryptocurrency hoping to 'appreciate by at most 5%' has to have some
> reliable metric for measuring it's value in the real world. Otherwise coin
> generation algorithms are just a shot in the dark, hoping to mimic the
> expected growth of the coin or having some authority that can provide input
> about it's real dollar value. And anything that tries to get insider
> metrics will need some defence against liars and sybil attacks.
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:07 PM, Jim Bell  wrote:
>
>
>
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* Kelly John Rose 
> *To:* cypherpunks at cpunks.org
> *Sent:* Monday, November 25, 2013 8:00 AM
> *Subject:* Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
>
> On 11/25/2013 4:26 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
>
> >> Why suddenly all this attention for yet another assassination market?
> >> Because it's more "hit them and earn the bounty", like at a fair, style?
>
> >I wonder what would happen if multiple people claimed the same date for
> >the death of a celebrity.
>
> I haven't read enough of the 'AM' system to know what that system would
> do, but it seems to me that a logical outcome would be to split the reward
> based on the size of the contribution included with each prediction.  For
> instance, if Person A correctly predicted with 1 BTC, and Person B
> correctly predicted with 9 BTC, Person 1 should get 10% of the reward,
> while Person B should get 90%.
>
> Incidentally, one problem I see with Sanjuro's 'AM' (Assassination Market)
> system (at least, so far) is the setting of a minimum bet at 1.0 BTC, which
> is about $800 when I checked a few seconds ago.  In writing my AP essay, I
> anticipated that very small bets (say, 10 cents US) would be allowed.
> Except in unusual situations, few people would want to donate $800 (USD) to
> see somebody dead; Far more would be willing to donate $1 (USD) for that.
>
> I don't know if the current minimum bid in 'AM' has something to do with
> the granularity of 1.0 BTC, but the existence of digits to the right of the
> decimal point in the prediction totalizations suggests that this is not the
> case.   If the problem is that the prediction totalization is currently
> being done manually, rather than automatically, that is a limitation that I
> think must be fixed in order for 'AM' to operate well.  And with a minimum
> bet of 1.0 BTC, it might be portrayed as if 'AM' is a tool of the wealthy,
> rather than that of the average person.
>
> To the extent that this is a problem now, it will be worse as Bitcoin
> continues to deflate (increase in value) as it was no doubt intended to
> do.  What happens when 1 BTC = $10,000?   I consider that one of the few
> disadvantages or problems with Bitcoin is its hyper-deflationary nature:
> How can a currency function as a currency, if it is 'scheduled' (by
> algorithm) to appreciate in value far faster than any commodity?  Another
> related problem is that Bitcoin is effectively programmed to excessively
> reward early-adopters.  While I feel that the inventor of Bitcoin should be
> richly rewarded for doing the work necessary to give us such a beneficial
> addition to society, the limit of my generosity is about $1 billion (USD).
> Ultimately, I think that a replacement for Bitcoin ("Bitcoin 2.0"?) is
> necessary, one that won't appreciate in value more than, say, 5% per year.
>          Jim Bell
>
>
> Disclaimer:  I am not associated with Sanjuro's 'Assassination Market' in
> any way.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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From javier at liendo.net  Mon Nov 25 17:04:56 2013
From: javier at liendo.net (Javier Liendo)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:04:56 -0600
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>
Message-ID: 

isn't the real problem with bitcoin becoming a global currency an issue of
how to best manage the potential exponential growth in size of the
blockchain?

i know this is cypherpunks but please explain like i'm five...

regards,

javier

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:32 PM, Andy Isaacson  wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 07:04:51PM -0500, David Vorick wrote:
> > Your problem is if bitcoin becomes a world economy. That means bitcoins
> > usage grows by something like 2 orders of magnitude. Except that bitcoins
> > are already halfway mined, which means that the circulation will not keep
> > up. That is what drives the price up.
> >
> > If you want a currency that will scale with it's global usage (IE when
> the
> > market cap hits $21 trillion, there are 21 trillion in circulation), you
> > need some mechanism that knows how to equate 1 bitcoin to 1 dollar, that
> > way more bitcoins can be printed as the market cap goes up.
>
> Fractional bitcoins work just fine (down to 1/100,000,000, per
> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi ).  If BTC goes to 100,000 USD we'll
> just start pricing things in "thous" or "mils" or something similar.
>
> In other words, there are already 12 quadrillion Satoshis in
> circulation, plenty to absorb any further deflation.
>
> -andy
>
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From joe_wang at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 19:15:08 2013
From: joe_wang at yahoo.com (Joe Wang)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:15:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126024307.GO7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <1385435708.73413.YahooMailNeo@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Hi David,

I am not sure of your assumption on the cloud storage.  What about the component cost goes into it?  memory costs?  I remember when I was a teen trading DRAMS the price isn't that stable for certain period of time.  So even if demand for cloud storage fall, wouldn't cost of the cloud storage could be rising due to other events?

About perishable commodity.  I don't know where you live.  But I know cost of milk has gone up tremendously in certain parts of the world.  In China, cost of salt has gone up 10 folds in a short few years.  Price of corn and orange juice can always limit up or down if some crazy weather hit certain part of the country.

-Joe

________________________________
 From: David Vorick 
To: Andy Isaacson  
Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

Joe, the only reason that the price of cloud storage would fall is if demand for cloud storage falls. The value of cloud storage over time should be fairly stable, perhaps not as stable as today's US dollar but certainly more stable than bitcoin is today.

But in the case of tulips, bitcoins, etc., their stability was only derived from their speculative value. Bread will be reasonable stable, because people don't speculate in bread. Bread has a minimum price, because there is a limited supply and a clearly defined need. All commodities are not equal. Bitcoin is one of the worst I can imagine, but the tulips during tulipmania take the cake.

I believe you can regulate cloud storage in a way that prevents fraudsters from manipulating it. The only assumption I need is that the majority of the network is honest. You can use hashing + random strings to confirm that a person still has the file they are hosting. You only need then to be sure that the person hosting the file and the person uploading the file are not in cahoots. You can achieve that by making a random mapping between people and hosts, and only picking the host after a person has announced how much file storage they wish to rent (and paid for the first month). This makes it too expensive to host files on your own machines, because you have a very low probability of getting the opportunity to store a file on your own machine.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 9:43 PM, Andy Isaacson  wrote:

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 06:20:27PM -0800, coderman wrote:
>> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:12 PM, David Vorick  wrote:
>> > ...
>> > Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the
>> > petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else...
>> > But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the
>> > price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of
>> > storing data on the network.
>>
>> i like the idea of "proof of _useful_ work" applied here to storage.
>> if only mining had been applied to BOINC, GIMPS, or *@home efforts...
>
>The critical feature of the BTC PoW block chain is that the work is
>applied to a believed-computationally-hard problem that is a function of
>the block under consideration.  This precludes the "work" being a
>function of any other property.
>
>
>> surely there is prior art?
>
>How quickly we forget ... Bitcoin did 4 impossible things before
>breakfast, and now we're whining that it didn't do 5. :)
>
>In 2008 nobody in the open research community would have proposed that a
>peer-to-peer (1) autoscaling (2) computational PoW (3) deflationary (4)
>space-conserving cryptocurrency was even theoretically possible.  Then
>Nakamoto dropped working code and the paper.
>
>Adding a "useful work" unit to the mining PoW has been considered; it's
>extremely hard to do and puts the "useful work" project (whatever it is)
>squarely in the line of fire for fraudsters and attacks.
>
>-andy
>
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From david.vorick at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 17:43:11 2013
From: david.vorick at gmail.com (David Vorick)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 20:43:11 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: 

Bitcoin has a lot of problems.

Andy, the problem isn't the denomination, the problem is that Satioshi has
5% of all the currency, and the Winklevoss twins have another 0.5%. If
bitcoin becomes worth 100 trillion dollars, they've got a solid 500 billion
for being nobody and doing nothing. That's a problem to me.

Another problem with bitcoin is that the blockchain won't scale. Another
problem is that nobody knows how to price transaction fees. And then
there's the selfish mining problem.

I think though that we'll see other cryptocurrencies that solve these
problems. Bitcoin is overinflated, and while the current alt coins aren't
offering much in the way of competition.

I'm working on one right now. It's not built but the idea is to use
proof-of-contribution instead of proof-of-work, where contribution is disk
storage contributed to a distributed network. The disk storage is used to
house the blockchain, but it can also be sold on a market for people to
use. Theoretically, this gives people a way to price the currency (using
the value of cloud storage vs. the price of storage on the network using
the network currency).

The tricky part is preventing cheating, but I think I have a decent
solution.

I don't however know a good way to distribute currency to the network, for
the problems I was explaining to Jim Bell. Storage is currently getting
cheaper at an exponential rate, and I have no idea how to predict the
volume of users over time, nor a good way to measure the volume of users as
immune to sybil attacks. How do you prevent the early adopters from
becoming stupid wealthy if the currency takes off?
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From david.vorick at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 18:12:22 2013
From: david.vorick at gmail.com (David Vorick)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 21:12:22 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: 

As I was telling Jayvan, the idea would be that early adopters use the
currency for its inherent uses to them, as opposed to its speculative
potential.

Right now, bitcoin is almost exclusively speculative. It's worth a lot of
money because the value has been increasing consistently. That's tulipmania.

In a perfect world you would have some way to protect a currency against
speculation. The volatility in bitcoin makes it less useful as a currency,
therefore the speculation is damaging bitcoin.

I don't have a solution, and I'm not suggesting one, I'm merely suggesting
that a solution might exist that would be a substantial improvement.

If bitcoin was based on something that had inherent value, say cloud
storage, then a spike in value would be followed by a spike in the amount
of storage being contributed to the network (bitcoin currently does this, a
spike in price is followed by a spike in mining). The key here though is
that the network would be protect from dramatic dips in value. When bitcoin
drops in price, all of the abundant mining does nothing to save bitcoin,
because the bitcoin mining doesn't actually add any value to the network.
Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the
petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else.

But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the price
of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of storing data
on the network. That's something that actually has use, and so people would
let the price fall unreasonably low (instead they would find a way to make
use of the cheap storage). This would allow the currency to ride arbitrary
spikes in price while being protected against arbitrary drops in price.

Jim, the amount of mining being done on the bitcoin network has no impact
on the price. The price might have an impact on the volume of mining, but
because the mining is specific to the bitcoin network (double sha2 hashing
or something like that) it can't be sold or used for other applications.
Bitcoin mining is only good for bitcoin mining, which means the demand for
the mining is exclusively based on value of the bitcoins being mined every
day.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 8:54 PM, coderman  wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:43 PM, David Vorick 
> wrote:
> > ... How do you prevent the early adopters from becoming stupid
> > wealthy if the currency takes off?
>
> high risk, high reward.
>
> why should early adoption with high risk not pay more than late
> adoption with significantly less risk?
>
>
> i agree that the externals affecting BTC exchange rate are volatile
> and annoying, but this hardly seems like bitcoin's fault.  do you
> fight tulpenmanie with currency controls?  good luck!
>
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From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 21:37:14 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 21:37:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <1385444234.61290.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

I've found the problematic passage in Satoshi's paper.  From Section 4, 'Proof of Work':

       "To compensate for increasing hardware speed and varying interest in running nodes over time,the proof-of-work difficulty is determined by a moving average targeting an average number of blocks per hour.  If they're generated too fast, the difficulty increases."

So I ask, "What is 'too fast'?"  What it means is that the algorithm tries to limit the rate of creation of bitcoins to a relatively constant value.  At the time most people first read that paper, this might not have appeared like it was going to foment a problem.  But, it should have been obvious to Satoshi that the adoption of a new digital currency isn't a linear process:  Particularly in the early stages I would have anticipated that 'demand' for BTC would be some approximation of the square of the elapsed time, rather than the elapsed time.   One user would likely 'create' other users at a relatively constant rate, meaning that the integral of xdx is (x**2).   (disregarding the 1/2 factor...).    To limit the creation of bitcoins to a linear value amounts to throttling its potential, and that means a pressure for the value to go up, way up.  That's great for the early adopters, whose early work is made far more valuable than it otherwise
 would have been.  Doubtless Satoshi understood this.  Doubtless Satoshi also understood how important it was for him to get together  as much computing power as he could afford, at the beginning, because CPU power at that point was quite sufficient to mine bitcoin.  

       Jim Bell

________________________________
 From: David Vorick 
To: coderman  
Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

As I was telling Jayvan, the idea would be that early adopters use the currency for its inherent uses to them, as opposed to its speculative potential.

Right now, bitcoin is almost exclusively speculative. It's worth a lot of money because the value has been increasing consistently. That's tulipmania.

In a perfect world you would have some way to protect a currency against speculation. The volatility in bitcoin makes it less useful as a currency, therefore the speculation is damaging bitcoin.

I don't have a solution, and I'm not suggesting one, I'm merely suggesting that a solution might exist that would be a substantial improvement.

If bitcoin was based on something that had inherent value, say cloud storage, then a spike in value would be followed by a spike in the amount of storage being contributed to the network (bitcoin currently does this, a spike in price is followed by a spike in mining). The key here though is that the network would be protect from dramatic dips in value. When bitcoin drops in price, all of the abundant mining does nothing to save bitcoin, because the bitcoin mining doesn't actually add any value to the network. Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else.

But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of storing data on the network. That's something that actually has use, and so people would let the price fall unreasonably low (instead they would find a way to make use of the cheap storage). This would allow the currency to ride arbitrary spikes in price while being protected against arbitrary drops in price.

Jim, the amount of mining being done on the bitcoin network has no impact on the price. The price might have an impact on the volume of mining, but because the mining is specific to the bitcoin network (double sha2 hashing or something like that) it can't be sold or used for other applications. Bitcoin mining is only good for bitcoin mining, which means the demand for the mining is exclusively based on value of the bitcoins being mined every day.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 8:54 PM, coderman  wrote:

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 5:43 PM, David Vorick  wrote:
>> ... How do you prevent the early adopters from becoming stupid
>
>> wealthy if the currency takes off?
>
>high risk, high reward.
>
>why should early adoption with high risk not pay more than late
>adoption with significantly less risk?
>
>
>i agree that the externals affecting BTC exchange rate are volatile
>and annoying, but this hardly seems like bitcoin's fault.  do you
>fight tulpenmanie with currency controls?  good luck!
>
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From seanl at literati.org  Mon Nov 25 21:50:48 2013
From: seanl at literati.org (Sean Lynch)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 21:50:48 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
 (coderman@gmail.com's message of "Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:20:27 -0800")
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <87vbzfr9s7.fsf@literati.org>

On Mon, Nov 25 2013, coderman wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:12 PM, David Vorick  wrote:
>> ...
>> Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the
>> petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else...
>> But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the
>> price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of
>> storing data on the network.

> i like the idea of "proof of _useful_ work" applied here to storage.
> if only mining had been applied to BOINC, GIMPS, or *@home efforts...

> surely there is prior art?

I just remembered, there is in fact prior art, though it's state of the
art, as in "nearly practical." They're called SNARKs: Succinct
Non-interactive ARguments of Knowledge. You can take any computation and
annotate it sufficiently that whoever runs the computation can generate
a (constant size) proof that they did it correctly in (nearly) constant
time. Andrew Miller posted about it on the Tahoe-LAFS mailing list. See
http://eprint.iacr.org/2013/507.pdf for one implementation.

I'm not sure if you could use this for a Bitcoin-style problem, though,
since I have no idea if the difficulty can be adjusted smoothly. It's
interesting that we can now take ALL computations problems and turn
them into the "easy to verify" variety, however.

-- 
Sean Richard Lynch 
http://www.literati.org/~seanl/
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From david.vorick at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 18:52:08 2013
From: david.vorick at gmail.com (David Vorick)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 21:52:08 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <20131126024307.GO7523@hexapodia.org>
References: <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126024307.GO7523@hexapodia.org>
Message-ID: 

Joe, the only reason that the price of cloud storage would fall is if
demand for cloud storage falls. The value of cloud storage over time should
be fairly stable, perhaps not as stable as today's US dollar but certainly
more stable than bitcoin is today.

But in the case of tulips, bitcoins, etc., their stability was only derived
from their speculative value. Bread will be reasonable stable, because
people don't speculate in bread. Bread has a minimum price, because there
is a limited supply and a clearly defined need. All commodities are not
equal. Bitcoin is one of the worst I can imagine, but the tulips during
tulipmania take the cake.

I believe you can regulate cloud storage in a way that prevents fraudsters
from manipulating it. The only assumption I need is that the majority of
the network is honest. You can use hashing + random strings to confirm that
a person still has the file they are hosting. You only need then to be sure
that the person hosting the file and the person uploading the file are not
in cahoots. You can achieve that by making a random mapping between people
and hosts, and only picking the host after a person has announced how much
file storage they wish to rent (and paid for the first month). This makes
it too expensive to host files on your own machines, because you have a
very low probability of getting the opportunity to store a file on your own
machine.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 9:43 PM, Andy Isaacson  wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 06:20:27PM -0800, coderman wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:12 PM, David Vorick 
> wrote:
> > > ...
> > > Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the
> > > petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else...
> > > But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the
> > > price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of
> > > storing data on the network.
> >
> > i like the idea of "proof of _useful_ work" applied here to storage.
> > if only mining had been applied to BOINC, GIMPS, or *@home efforts...
>
> The critical feature of the BTC PoW block chain is that the work is
> applied to a believed-computationally-hard problem that is a function of
> the block under consideration.  This precludes the "work" being a
> function of any other property.
>
> > surely there is prior art?
>
> How quickly we forget ... Bitcoin did 4 impossible things before
> breakfast, and now we're whining that it didn't do 5. :)
>
> In 2008 nobody in the open research community would have proposed that a
> peer-to-peer (1) autoscaling (2) computational PoW (3) deflationary (4)
> space-conserving cryptocurrency was even theoretically possible.  Then
> Nakamoto dropped working code and the paper.
>
> Adding a "useful work" unit to the mining PoW has been considered; it's
> extremely hard to do and puts the "useful work" project (whatever it is)
> squarely in the line of fire for fraudsters and attacks.
>
> -andy
>
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From david.vorick at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 19:42:24 2013
From: david.vorick at gmail.com (David Vorick)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 22:42:24 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385435708.73413.YahooMailNeo@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126024307.GO7523@hexapodia.org>

 <1385435708.73413.YahooMailNeo@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

Yes but it still doesn't compare to the price fluctuations of bitcoin. But
you are right, everything has fluctuation in price. I merely wanted to show
that some thing have a more volatile price than others. The US bond is a
typical financial example of something that doesn't fluctuate dramatically
in price. (And even that still fluctuates, but very gradually by comparison
to stocks & commodities).

So, yes, by tethering a currency to the value of cloud storage you are
still limited by the fluctuations of the value of cloud storage itself. But
at least now you have a concrete way to price your currency, and I think
it's reasonable to assume that the value of cloud storage won't be
decreasing any time soon. (Price per TB may decrease, but we don't tether
the currency to the value of 1 TB, we tether the currency to the value of
$1 worth of disk storage hardware).

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 10:15 PM, Joe Wang  wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> I am not sure of your assumption on the cloud storage.  What about the
> component cost goes into it?  memory costs?  I remember when I was a teen
> trading DRAMS the price isn't that stable for certain period of time.  So
> even if demand for cloud storage fall, wouldn't cost of the cloud storage
> could be rising due to other events?
>
> About perishable commodity.  I don't know where you live.  But I know cost
> of milk has gone up tremendously in certain parts of the world.  In China,
> cost of salt has gone up 10 folds in a short few years.  Price of corn and
> orange juice can always limit up or down if some crazy weather hit certain
> part of the country.
>
> -Joe
>
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* David Vorick 
> *To:* Andy Isaacson 
> *Cc:* "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" 
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:52 AM
> *Subject:* Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re:
> Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
>
> Joe, the only reason that the price of cloud storage would fall is if
> demand for cloud storage falls. The value of cloud storage over time should
> be fairly stable, perhaps not as stable as today's US dollar but certainly
> more stable than bitcoin is today.
>
> But in the case of tulips, bitcoins, etc., their stability was only
> derived from their speculative value. Bread will be reasonable stable,
> because people don't speculate in bread. Bread has a minimum price, because
> there is a limited supply and a clearly defined need. All commodities are
> not equal. Bitcoin is one of the worst I can imagine, but the tulips during
> tulipmania take the cake.
>
> I believe you can regulate cloud storage in a way that prevents fraudsters
> from manipulating it. The only assumption I need is that the majority of
> the network is honest. You can use hashing + random strings to confirm that
> a person still has the file they are hosting. You only need then to be sure
> that the person hosting the file and the person uploading the file are not
> in cahoots. You can achieve that by making a random mapping between people
> and hosts, and only picking the host after a person has announced how much
> file storage they wish to rent (and paid for the first month). This makes
> it too expensive to host files on your own machines, because you have a
> very low probability of getting the opportunity to store a file on your own
> machine.
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 9:43 PM, Andy Isaacson  wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 06:20:27PM -0800, coderman wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:12 PM, David Vorick 
> wrote:
> > > ...
> > > Nobody cares how many petaflops the network is pulling, because the
> > > petaflops can't be put to use somewhere else...
> > > But if the mining was based on cloud storage, a dramatic drop in the
> > > price of the currency would result in a dramatic drop in the cost of
> > > storing data on the network.
> >
> > i like the idea of "proof of _useful_ work" applied here to storage.
> > if only mining had been applied to BOINC, GIMPS, or *@home efforts...
>
> The critical feature of the BTC PoW block chain is that the work is
> applied to a believed-computationally-hard problem that is a function of
> the block under consideration.  This precludes the "work" being a
> function of any other property.
>
> > surely there is prior art?
>
> How quickly we forget ... Bitcoin did 4 impossible things before
> breakfast, and now we're whining that it didn't do 5. :)
>
> In 2008 nobody in the open research community would have proposed that a
> peer-to-peer (1) autoscaling (2) computational PoW (3) deflationary (4)
> space-conserving cryptocurrency was even theoretically possible.  Then
> Nakamoto dropped working code and the paper.
>
> Adding a "useful work" unit to the mining PoW has been considered; it's
> extremely hard to do and puts the "useful work" project (whatever it is)
> squarely in the line of fire for fraudsters and attacks.
>
> -andy
>
>
>
>
>
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From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 25 23:51:22 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 23:51:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on
 Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

We can certainly agree on that!  The new currency should be as anonymous as Zerocoin.  (I can think of an application that will require robust anonymity.)
             Jim Bell

________________________________
 From: David Vorick 

I have faith that additional cryptocurrencies will be launched/released that are substantially better and different from bitcoin. Bitcoin is just the beginnning, and ultimately I don't think it will make more than a few years farther before there is an unquestioned replacement.

On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 1:53 AM, James A. Donald  wrote:

On 2013-11-26 11:43, David Vorick wrote:
>
>Andy, the problem isn't the denomination, the problem is that Satioshi
>>has 5% of all the currency, and the Winklevoss twins have another 0.5%.
>>If bitcoin becomes worth 100 trillion dollars, they've got a solid 500
>>billion for being nobody and doing nothing. That's a problem to me.
>>
>Five hundred billion for freeing the world financial system from US domination without bloodshed.  Sounds mighty cheap to me.
>
>I am, however worried that bitcoin can be dominated by a small group. As the total transaction volume increases, the number of people that are full and equal participants in recording and facilitating transactions must diminish.
>
>This was my original objection, scaling failure, way back in the beginning, and it is now coming true.
>
>But even if my worst fears are realized, that is still a whole lot better than what we have now.
>
>
>
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From juan.g71 at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 19:41:56 2013
From: juan.g71 at gmail.com (Juan Garofalo)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 00:41:56 -0300
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <87siukrkws.fsf@literati.org>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <87siukrkws.fsf@literati.org>
Message-ID: <4ADEB4655406E13C82D87179@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>

--On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50 PM -0800 Sean Lynch
 wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 25 2013, Javier Liendo wrote:
> 
>> isn't the real problem with bitcoin becoming a global currency an
>> issue of how to best manage the potential exponential growth in size
>> of the blockchain? 
>> 
>> i know this is cypherpunks but please explain like i'm five...
> 
> Hopefully Moore's Law will save us, but I actually expect that, should
> Bitcoin continue to grow, most payments will be made through payment
> services of some kind, with the actual transactions only used to deposit
> money in your account with the payment service. This is analogous to how
> gold was used once banking became popular.
> 
> Should these payment services become full-fledged banks, they could help
> with the deflation problem as well by engaging in fractional reserve
> banking,

	There's no 'deflatation' problem. The bitcoin ponzi scheme, I mean crypto
currency is going up because lots of people are buying. 

	so called 'fractional reserve banking' is a non-solution to the
non-problem of deflation. In other words, it's a scam. 

> the same way banks did with gold. Many people have a negative
> impression of fractional reserve banking, but in fact most of the
> instability experienced in the US was actually caused by restrictions on
> branching and requirements that banks invest in the debt of states that
> kept defaulting. Bank failures were much rarer in countries without
> these requirements. For example, Canada had *zero* bank failures during
> the Great Depression and only created a central bank for the purpose of
> facilitating international payments, so that Canadian banks and
> businesses didn't need accounts in London.
> 
> -- 
> Sean Richard Lynch 
> http://www.literati.org/~seanl/
> 
>  

From david.vorick at gmail.com  Mon Nov 25 23:10:47 2013
From: david.vorick at gmail.com (David Vorick)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 02:10:47 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>
Message-ID: 

I have faith that additional cryptocurrencies will be launched/released
that are substantially better and different from bitcoin. Bitcoin is just
the beginnning, and ultimately I don't think it will make more than a few
years farther before there is an unquestioned replacement.

On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 1:53 AM, James A. Donald  wrote:

> On 2013-11-26 11:43, David Vorick wrote:
>
>> Andy, the problem isn't the denomination, the problem is that Satioshi
>> has 5% of all the currency, and the Winklevoss twins have another 0.5%.
>> If bitcoin becomes worth 100 trillion dollars, they've got a solid 500
>> billion for being nobody and doing nothing. That's a problem to me.
>>
>
> Five hundred billion for freeing the world financial system from US
> domination without bloodshed.  Sounds mighty cheap to me.
>
> I am, however worried that bitcoin can be dominated by a small group. As
> the total transaction volume increases, the number of people that are full
> and equal participants in recording and facilitating transactions must
> diminish.
>
> This was my original objection, scaling failure, way back in the
> beginning, and it is now coming true.
>
> But even if my worst fears are realized, that is still a whole lot better
> than what we have now.
>
>
>
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From eugen at leitl.org  Mon Nov 25 23:09:50 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 08:09:50 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>
References: 
 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>
Message-ID: <20131126070950.GV10793@leitl.org>

On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 04:53:09PM +1000, James A. Donald wrote:

> I am, however worried that bitcoin can be dominated by a small
> group. As the total transaction volume increases, the number of
> people that are full and equal participants in recording and
> facilitating transactions must diminish.

There are scaling issues in Bitcoin which can be addressed in
a successor that is not a mere copycat with no added value.
Some of the issues might be even fixed as time passes, and
there's sufficient incentive.

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Tue Nov 26 10:16:52 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 10:16:52 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
Message-ID: <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

From: Guido Witmond 

On 11/26/13 08:51, Jim Bell wrote:

>> We can certainly agree on that!  The new currency should be as anonymous
>> as Zerocoin.  (I can think of an application that will require robust
>> anonymity.)
>>              Jim Bell

>     But even if my worst fears are realized, that is still a whole lot
>     better than what we have now.>Since Money == Power,  and Unaccounted Power == Corruption,
>the problem lies with unaccounted use of Power.

>If a politician takes a bribe, that is done without accountability to
>the public.
>With accountable transactions, the briber cannot give some anonymous
>Money, they have do more visible things, like offering a (no-show) job
>after the politician went through the revolving door. This makes a
>single bribe much longer visible.

Look what has happened to Bill Clinton after leaving office.  It's said he's worth $100 million  (In USD, presumably).  Mostly this comes in the form of 'speaking fees':  As much as $700 in Nigeria. This is not-so-thinly-disguised bribery. One solution that would slow him down would be a 95% tax rate on an ex-president's income, at least that above $400,000 per year.  

>I prefer to have all my wielding of Power (money transactions) visible
>if it means that I can equally monitor those wielding other Power
>(politicians, government officials in duty).

I prefer that politicians not exist.  Ideally, deter them from becoming politicians in the first place, of if that doesn't work, reward others for taking them out of office.

>Currently, with our fiat-money, I can't monitor my politicians while
>they are monitoring mine.
>Accountability (responsibility) is the other side of the coin of Freedom
>(pun intended). You can't have one without the other.

>On the assassination market ideas, I find it evil. Killing politicians
>for unaccounted wielding of power (corruption) doesn't deter. It makes
>it worse as, after the first bribe, the politician has nothing more to
>lose.

Your statement makes no sense.  "Killing politicians for unaccounted wielding of power doesn't deter"?  It's hard to imagine that it WOULDN'T deter that!  It would certainly prevent that, at least future such exercises of power, by the target...er...person in question.
You also seem to disregard the idea that such a system would deter people from entering politics, at least those with the intention of being corrupt.  
(Full disclosure:  I view 'politics' as being _inherently_ 'corrupt', being a libertarian.)

>Instead of killing, we give them a fair trial and jail that politician
>and the bribing jail owner in their own jail for a long time. That's
>sweet revenge!
>Guido Witmond.

How often does that actually work?   The people in power, the ones actually making the rules, have every incentive to try to make prosecutions of that kind as rare as possible.  And there are countries in which prosecution of the political opposition is virtually a national sport, such as Russia.  I think your proposed 'solution' simply isn't a solution at all.  At least, it hasn't worked yet, and there is no prospect for it working in the future, anywhere.
       Jim Bell
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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 26 10:29:45 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 10:29:45 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

What do you bribe an ex-president (out of office since the millennium) to do for you when lecturing?

From: Jim Bell Jim Bell
Reply: Jim Bell jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com
Date: November 26, 2013 at 10:26:25 AM
To: Guido Witmond guido at witmond.nl, cypherpunks at cpunks.org cypherpunks at cpunks.org
Subject:  Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)  
Look what has happened to Bill Clinton after leaving office.  It's said he's worth $100 million  (In USD, presumably).  Mostly this comes in the form of 'speaking fees':  As much as $700 in Nigeria. This is not-so-thinly-disguised bribery. One solution that would slow him down would be a 95% tax rate on an ex-president's income, at least that above $400,000 per year. 
-- 
Al Billings
http://makehacklearn.org

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From bill.stewart at pobox.com  Tue Nov 26 11:07:04 2013
From: bill.stewart at pobox.com (Bill Stewart)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:07:04 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re:
 Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>

At 05:43 PM 11/25/2013, David Vorick wrote:
>Bitcoin has a lot of problems.
>Andy, the problem isn't the denomination, the problem is that 
>Satioshi has 5% of all the currency, and the Winklevoss twins have 
>another 0.5%. If bitcoin becomes worth 100 trillion dollars, they've 
>got a solid 500 billion for being nobody and doing nothing. That's a 
>problem to me.

Satoshi gave us the technology and got people to start using it.  If 
he gets fabulously wealthy by owning 5% of it, I'm not jealous (well, 
ok, a bit jealous, but I'm not going to contend that he shouldn't 
have it just because of jealously.)
The Winklevossen are just speculators; I don't particularly like 
using a currency whose value is mostly from speculation, but 
experimentation is a critical part of rolling out something like a 
new type of currency, so whatever.  At least they pumped some cash 
into the system early on.
And that guy in Norway who was an early experimenter, then kind of 
forgot about his bitcoins until he suddenly noticed they were worth 
$800K?  Cool, good for him!
It wouldn't be surprising if the first people to do GPU-based mining 
also got a large pile of bitcoins compared to the CPU-based miners.

>I'm working on one right now. It's not built but the idea is to use 
>proof-of-contribution instead of proof-of-work, where contribution 
>is disk storage contributed to a distributed network.

I think "proof of useful contribution" is a much better thing than 
"proof of wasted electricity"; good luck getting it off the ground.
I'd recommend reading all of Zooko's Tahoe-LAFS work for getting some 
ideas about privacy and reliability issues, both of which are harder 
than they look.
The other catch is that storage costs do keep decreasing, and storage 
in a cloud is always a lot slower than local storage, so you'll have 
to think hard about business models.

One of the cool things Bitcoin did was created a way to have the 
proof-of-work turn into currency without needing a banker in the 
middle; that means that users and miners don't have to worry (much) 
about the creator absconding with the value or being shut down, and 
there's built-in protection against hyperinflation, unlike some of 
the dotcom silly currencies like Beenz and Flooz that appeared and 
vanished along with the dogfood-on-line dotcoms.  It's been 
interesting to watch Bitcoin's value surviving after the loss of the 
Silk Road site (which got around the "Nothing To Buy With It" hurdle 
that helped kill the original Chaumian Digicash.)

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Tue Nov 26 11:18:41 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:18:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: <1385493521.58536.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

(Note:  I meant to type "$700,000" in Nigeria, below, not "$700.)
Oh, non-perceptive one, I seek to enlighten you.  While the payment for bribery normally is thought of as occurring _before_ (or during) the payback desired, as a practical matter it isn't very practical to bribe an American president while he is in office.  But since the office of President will continue to exist, and the people who are inclined to get favors will continue to exist, and they all know this (see 'game theory'),  a logical solution is to delay the bribe payment until the office-holder is out of office.  Obviously, while a president may wonder what would motivate a briber to actually pay the bribe after he leaves office, the reality is (remember reality?) is that word of welshing will surely get back to the subsequent office-holder(s), poisoning the well for the almost-but-not-quite-briber in the future.  No doubt, for example, America's First Muslim President will pick up tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars doing the
 rubber-chicken circuit in the (Muslim) Middle-east.  Do you wonder why Obama hasn't 'jawboned' the Arab oil producers to drop oil prices to, say, $60 per barrel?  Do you wonder why he hasn't made more threats to open up the spigots of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?  Or why he hasn't approved the construction of the Keystone oil pipeline?  That's right:  Obama is carrying-water for the very people he expects to be bribed by about 3.5 years hence. 
        Jim Bell

________________________________
 From: Al Billings 
To: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" ; Jim Bell ; Guido Witmond  
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:29 AM
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

What do you bribe an ex-president (out of office since the millennium) to do for you when lecturing?

________________________________
From: Jim Bell Jim Bell
Reply: Jim Bell jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com
Date: November 26, 2013 at 10:26:25 AM
To: Guido Witmond guido at witmond.nl, cypherpunks at cpunks.org cypherpunks at cpunks.org
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market) 

Look what has happened to Bill Clinton after leaving office.  It's said he's worth $100 million  (In USD, presumably).  Mostly this comes in the form of 'speaking fees':  As much as $700 in Nigeria. This is not-so-thinly-disguised bribery. One solution that would slow him down would be a 95% tax rate on an ex-president's income, at least that above $400,000 per year. 
-- 
Al Billings
http://makehacklearn.org
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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 26 11:30:53 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:30:53 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385493521.58536.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385493521.58536.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

Well, you’ve already accused me of being a government shill, Jim, since I don’t think you’re a special flower. You don’t need to educate me. I’m clearly in on it.

From: Jim Bell Jim Bell
Reply: Jim Bell jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com
Date: November 26, 2013 at 11:21:29 AM
To: Al Billings albill at openbuddha.com, cypherpunks at cpunks.org cypherpunks at cpunks.org
Subject:  Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)  
(Note:  I meant to type "$700,000" in Nigeria, below, not "$700.)
Oh, non-perceptive one, I seek to enlighten you.  While the payment for bribery normally is thought of as occurring _before_ (or during) the payback desired, as a practical matter it isn't very practical to bribe an American president while he is in office.  But since the office of President will continue to exist, and the people who are inclined to get favors will continue to exist, and they all know this (see 'game theory'),  a logical solution is to delay the bribe payment until the office-holder is out of office.  Obviously, while a president may wonder what would motivate a briber to actually pay the bribe after he leaves office, the reality is (remember reality?) is that word of welshing will surely get back to the subsequent office-holder(s), poisoning the well for the almost-but-not-quite-briber in the future.  No doubt, for example, America's First Muslim President will pick up tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars doing the rubber-chicken circuit in the (Muslim) Middle-east.  Do you wonder why Obama hasn't 'jawboned' the Arab oil producers to drop oil prices to, say, $60 per barrel?  Do you wonder why he hasn't made more threats to open up the spigots of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?  Or why he hasn't approved the construction of the Keystone oil pipeline?  That's right:  Obama is carrying-water for the very people he expects to be bribed by about 3.5 years hence.
        Jim Bell

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From guido at witmond.nl  Tue Nov 26 02:38:25 2013
From: guido at witmond.nl (Guido Witmond)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:38:25 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>

On 11/26/13 08:51, Jim Bell wrote:
> We can certainly agree on that!  The new currency should be as anonymous
> as Zerocoin.  (I can think of an application that will require robust
> anonymity.)
>              Jim Bell

> 
>     But even if my worst fears are realized, that is still a whole lot
>     better than what we have now.
> 

Since Money == Power,  and Unaccounted Power == Corruption,
the problem lies with unaccounted use of Power.

If a politician takes a bribe, that is done without accountability to
the public.

With accountable transactions, the briber cannot give some anonymous
Money, they have do more visible things, like offering a (no-show) job
after the politician went through the revolving door. This makes a
single bribe much longer visible.

I prefer to have all my wielding of Power (money transactions) visible
if it means that I can equally monitor those wielding other Power
(politicians, government officials in duty).

Currently, with our fiat-money, I can't monitor my politicians while
they are monitoring mine.

Accountability (responsibility) is the other side of the coin of Freedom
(pun intended). You can't have one without the other.

On the assassination market ideas, I find it evil. Killing politicians
for unaccounted wielding of power (corruption) doesn't deter. It makes
it worse as, after the first bribe, the politician has nothing more to
lose.

Instead of killing, we give them a fair trial and jail that politician
and the bribing jail owner in their own jail for a long time. That's
sweet revenge!

Guido Witmond.

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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 26 11:52:37 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:52:37 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385493521.58536.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: 

I will bow out. Jim and I already dislike one another. No need to continue.

From: Jayvan Santos Jayvan Santos
Reply: Jayvan Santos jayvansantos at gmail.com
Date: November 26, 2013 at 11:39:31 AM
To: Jim Bell jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com
Subject:  Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)  
The topic has derailed from accoubtability and transperancy to American politics with just you two guys talking. Borderline r/Conspiracy. 
-- 
Al Billings
http://makehacklearn.org

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From eugen at leitl.org  Tue Nov 26 04:05:46 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 13:05:46 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <87siukrkws.fsf@literati.org>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <87siukrkws.fsf@literati.org>
Message-ID: <20131126120546.GE10793@leitl.org>

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 05:50:27PM -0800, Sean Lynch wrote:

> Hopefully Moore's Law will save us, but I actually expect that, should

Moore's law has unfortunately recently ran into financial scaling limits,
which are slowing doubling times (estimate from 18 months to three years
at the moment) with physical scaling limits close to follow (somewhen
shortly below 5 nm).

Of course current ASICs are far removed from cutting edge. Another
issue is blockchain storage (NOR flash is also pretty finished, HDD
area density has stalled recently, but might resume scaling, at least
for a while) and availability of network bandwidth. You can buy 10 Gbit/s
close to the backbone, but it's beyond affordability for most people.

> Bitcoin continue to grow, most payments will be made through payment
> services of some kind, with the actual transactions only used to deposit
> money in your account with the payment service. This is analogous to how
> gold was used once banking became popular.

From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 26 15:11:35 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:11:35 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52952905.60509@echeque.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <52952905.60509@echeque.com>
Message-ID: 

Citation needed. 

From: James A. Donald James A. Donald
On 2013-11-27 04:29, Al Billings wrote:  
> What do you bribe an ex-president (out of office since the millennium)  
> to do for you when lecturing?  

When he is in power, you put large sums of money under his effective  
control, but not under his name. Out of power, the money gets laundered  
to him by various means, among them inflated speaking fees.  
-- 
Al Billings
http://makehacklearn.org

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From bill.stewart at pobox.com  Tue Nov 26 15:15:23 2013
From: bill.stewart at pobox.com (Bill Stewart)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:15:23 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange
In-Reply-To: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl> <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
Message-ID: <20131127182457.29A14E5F8@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>

At 10:02 AM 11/26/2013, James A. Donald wrote:
 > Democracy does not work.  With bribery, we at least get the best 
politicians money can buy.

Nonsense - you should be able to buy much better politicians than the 
current clowns.

From jayvansantos at gmail.com  Tue Nov 26 11:39:30 2013
From: jayvansantos at gmail.com (Jayvan Santos)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:39:30 -0400
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385493521.58536.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385493521.58536.YahooMailNeo@web141203.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

The topic has derailed from accoubtability and transperancy to American
politics with just you two guys talking. Borderline r/Conspiracy.
(Note:  I meant to type "$700,000" in Nigeria, below, not "$700.)
Oh, non-perceptive one, I seek to enlighten you.  While the payment for
bribery normally is thought of as occurring _before_ (or during) the
payback desired, as a practical matter it isn't very practical to bribe an
American president while he is in office.  But since the office of
President will continue to exist, and the people who are inclined to get
favors will continue to exist, and they all know this (see 'game theory'),
a logical solution is to delay the bribe payment until the office-holder is
out of office.  Obviously, while a president may wonder what would motivate
a briber to actually pay the bribe after he leaves office, the reality is
(remember reality?) is that word of welshing will surely get back to the
subsequent office-holder(s), poisoning the well for the
almost-but-not-quite-briber in the future.  No doubt, for example,
America's First Muslim President will pick up tens or even hundreds of
millions of dollars doing the rubber-chicken circuit in the (Muslim)
Middle-east.  Do you wonder why Obama hasn't 'jawboned' the Arab oil
producers to drop oil prices to, say, $60 per barrel?  Do you wonder why he
hasn't made more threats to open up the spigots of the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve?  Or why he hasn't approved the construction of the Keystone oil
pipeline?  That's right:  Obama is carrying-water for the very people he
expects to be bribed by about 3.5 years hence.
        Jim Bell

  ------------------------------
 *From:* Al Billings 
*To:* "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" ; Jim Bell <
jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com>; Guido Witmond 
*Sent:* Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:29 AM
*Subject:* Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

What do you bribe an ex-president (out of office since the millennium) to
do for you when lecturing?

------------------------------
From: Jim Bell Jim Bell 
Reply: Jim Bell jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com
Date: November 26, 2013 at 10:26:25 AM
To: Guido Witmond guido at witmond.nl, cypherpunks at cpunks.org
cypherpunks at cpunks.org
Subject:  Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

Look what has happened to Bill Clinton after leaving office.  It's said
he's worth $100 million  (In USD, presumably).  Mostly this comes in the
form of 'speaking fees':  As much as $700 in Nigeria. This is
not-so-thinly-disguised bribery. One solution that would slow him down
would be a 95% tax rate on an ex-president's income, at least that above
$400,000 per year.

-- 
Al Billings
http://makehacklearn.org
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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 26 16:26:09 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 16:26:09 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

Message-ID: 

If democracy doesn’t work, what are people suggesting? Is this when the Libertarian masks come off?

From: Lodewijk andré de la porte Lodewijk andré de la porte
Reply: Lodewijk andré de la porte l at odewijk.nl
Date: November 26, 2013 at 4:18:34 PM
To: dan at geer.org dan at geer.org
Subject:  Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)  
2013/11/27 
 > Democracy does not work.  With bribery, we at least get the best
 > politicians money can buy.

I am betting that you define an honest politician as
one who having been bought stays bought.

And best by "agrees with the richest guy in the room"
-- 
Al Billings
http://makehacklearn.org

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From jamesd at echeque.com  Mon Nov 25 22:53:09 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 16:53:09 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-26 11:43, David Vorick wrote:
> Andy, the problem isn't the denomination, the problem is that Satioshi
> has 5% of all the currency, and the Winklevoss twins have another 0.5%.
> If bitcoin becomes worth 100 trillion dollars, they've got a solid 500
> billion for being nobody and doing nothing. That's a problem to me.

Five hundred billion for freeing the world financial system from US 
domination without bloodshed.  Sounds mighty cheap to me.

I am, however worried that bitcoin can be dominated by a small group. 
As the total transaction volume increases, the number of people that are 
full and equal participants in recording and facilitating transactions 
must diminish.

This was my original objection, scaling failure, way back in the 
beginning, and it is now coming true.

But even if my worst fears are realized, that is still a whole lot 
better than what we have now.

From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 26 17:52:37 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:52:37 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

 <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
Message-ID: 

 James A. Donald wrote:
One demotic regime, turns out in practice to be remarkably similar to 
another demotic regime. 

 When do you move to Belarus?

-- 
Al Billings
http://makehacklearn.org

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From dan at geer.org  Tue Nov 26 16:09:28 2013
From: dan at geer.org (dan at geer.org)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 19:09:28 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 27 Nov 2013 04:02:45 +1000."
 <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
Message-ID: <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

 > Democracy does not work.  With bribery, we at least get the best 
 > politicians money can buy.

I am betting that you define an honest politician as
one who having been bought stays bought.

--dan

From jayvansantos at gmail.com  Tue Nov 26 15:16:23 2013
From: jayvansantos at gmail.com (Jayvan Santos)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 19:16:23 -0400
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
Message-ID: 

Looking into primecoin I came across a hard fork called [datacoin](
https://github.com/foo1inge/datacoin-hp). Same PoW method and has tooken
off in China. 1 DTC = 1 CNY.
On Nov 26, 2013 7:01 PM, "Bill Stewart"  wrote:

> At 05:43 PM 11/25/2013, David Vorick wrote:
>
>> Bitcoin has a lot of problems.
>> Andy, the problem isn't the denomination, the problem is that Satioshi
>> has 5% of all the currency, and the Winklevoss twins have another 0.5%. If
>> bitcoin becomes worth 100 trillion dollars, they've got a solid 500 billion
>> for being nobody and doing nothing. That's a problem to me.
>>
>
> Satoshi gave us the technology and got people to start using it.  If he
> gets fabulously wealthy by owning 5% of it, I'm not jealous (well, ok, a
> bit jealous, but I'm not going to contend that he shouldn't have it just
> because of jealously.)
> The Winklevossen are just speculators; I don't particularly like using a
> currency whose value is mostly from speculation, but experimentation is a
> critical part of rolling out something like a new type of currency, so
> whatever.  At least they pumped some cash into the system early on.
> And that guy in Norway who was an early experimenter, then kind of forgot
> about his bitcoins until he suddenly noticed they were worth $800K?  Cool,
> good for him!
> It wouldn't be surprising if the first people to do GPU-based mining also
> got a large pile of bitcoins compared to the CPU-based miners.
>
>  I'm working on one right now. It's not built but the idea is to use
>> proof-of-contribution instead of proof-of-work, where contribution is disk
>> storage contributed to a distributed network.
>>
>
> I think "proof of useful contribution" is a much better thing than "proof
> of wasted electricity"; good luck getting it off the ground.
> I'd recommend reading all of Zooko's Tahoe-LAFS work for getting some
> ideas about privacy and reliability issues, both of which are harder than
> they look.
> The other catch is that storage costs do keep decreasing, and storage in a
> cloud is always a lot slower than local storage, so you'll have to think
> hard about business models.
>
> One of the cool things Bitcoin did was created a way to have the
> proof-of-work turn into currency without needing a banker in the middle;
> that means that users and miners don't have to worry (much) about the
> creator absconding with the value or being shut down, and there's built-in
> protection against hyperinflation, unlike some of the dotcom silly
> currencies like Beenz and Flooz that appeared and vanished along with the
> dogfood-on-line dotcoms.  It's been interesting to watch Bitcoin's value
> surviving after the loss of the Silk Road site (which got around the
> "Nothing To Buy With It" hurdle that helped kill the original Chaumian
> Digicash.)
>
>
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From tedks at riseup.net  Tue Nov 26 16:23:39 2013
From: tedks at riseup.net (Ted Smith)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 19:23:39 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
Message-ID: <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

On Tue, 2013-11-26 at 11:07 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:
> At 05:43 PM 11/25/2013, David Vorick wrote:
> >Bitcoin has a lot of problems.
> >Andy, the problem isn't the denomination, the problem is that 
> >Satioshi has 5% of all the currency, and the Winklevoss twins have 
> >another 0.5%. If bitcoin becomes worth 100 trillion dollars, they've 
> >got a solid 500 billion for being nobody and doing nothing. That's a 
> >problem to me.
> 
> Satoshi gave us the technology and got people to start using it.  If 
> he gets fabulously wealthy by owning 5% of it, I'm not jealous (well, 
> ok, a bit jealous, but I'm not going to contend that he shouldn't 
> have it just because of jealously.)

Absolutely. It's utterly absurd to claim that Satoshi got moderately
wealthy (not hyperrich yet by any means) by "doing nothing." There are
insights in Bitcoin enough to fuel dozens of PhDs worth of research, in
wider areas than you'd initially think.

-- 
Sent from Ubuntu
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From jamesd at echeque.com  Tue Nov 26 01:50:52 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 19:50:52 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

Message-ID: <52946EFC.4010209@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-26 11:04, Javier Liendo wrote:
> isn't the real problem with bitcoin becoming a global currency an issue
> of how to best manage the potential exponential growth in size of the
> blockchain?�

It is not exponential, but Yes.

I am unhappy with the proposed solutions to this problem, which involve 
fewer and fewer people having equal status in the monetary system.

From tedks at riseup.net  Tue Nov 26 17:06:43 2013
From: tedks at riseup.net (Ted Smith)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 20:06:43 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

Message-ID: <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

On Wed, 2013-11-27 at 01:36 +0100, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
> On Nov 27, 2013 1:25 AM, "Ted Smith"  wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 2013-11-26 at 11:07 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:
> > > At 05:43 PM 11/25/2013, David Vorick wrote:
> >
> > Absolutely. It's utterly absurd to claim that Satoshi got moderately
> > wealthy (not hyperrich yet by any means) by "doing nothing." There
> are
> > insights in Bitcoin enough to fuel dozens of PhDs worth of research,
> in
> > wider areas than 
> 
> Says more about PhD's than Satoshi. The money he'll earn with Bitcoin
> has no direct relationship to his investment. It is unlikely that,
> through coincidence, his reward is set nearly right. Regardless of
> your idea of right.
> 
> Lack of knowledge is the fail of all markets.

I'm not sure how you're evaluating his "investment," which was solving a
number of previously-thought-unsolvable problems in applied cryptography
in a way that became wildly popular, widely used, and enabled a large
amount of very influential services. 

Contributing to the world in such a manner rarely results in such
wealth, but I don't see why it shouldn't. 

-- 
Sent from Ubuntu
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From billstclair at gmail.com  Tue Nov 26 17:16:58 2013
From: billstclair at gmail.com (Bill St. Clair)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 20:16:58 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>
Message-ID: 

On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 8:06 PM, Ted Smith  wrote:
>
>
> I'm not sure how you're evaluating his "investment," which was solving a
> number of previously-thought-unsolvable problems in applied cryptography
> in a way that became wildly popular, widely used, and enabled a large
> amount of very influential services.
>
> Contributing to the world in such a manner rarely results in such
> wealth, but I don't see why it shouldn't.

Indeed. His invention is worth whatever value the market assigns it, and
it's nobody's business to judge otherwise.

-Bill
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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 26 20:25:23 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 20:25:23 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52956C1D.8020707@echeque.com>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

 <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com> <52956491.3030506@riseup.net>
 <52956C1D.8020707@echeque.com>
Message-ID: 

Ha ha ha. Omfg.

Crypto-monarchists and slavery apologetics.

This *is* the list that keeps on giving.

Someone cue the randroid ubermensch. 
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From albill at openbuddha.com  Tue Nov 26 20:42:26 2013
From: albill at openbuddha.com (Al Billings)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 20:42:26 -0800
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385526901.12707.6.camel@anglachel>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

 <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com> <52956491.3030506@riseup.net>
 <52956C1D.8020707@echeque.com>

 <1385526901.12707.6.camel@anglachel>
Message-ID: 

Well, to be fair Ted, no one said, “What we really need is to have Emperor Napoleon back…”

From: Ted Smith Ted Smith
It's not really crypto-monarchism if the answer to "What else if not 
democracy" is "Monarchism." 

That's just... monarchism. 
-- 
Al Billings
http://makehacklearn.org

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From coderman at gmail.com  Tue Nov 26 21:03:07 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 21:03:07 -0800
Subject: QUANTUMINSERT "wide stack" covert network communication
Message-ID: 

in the discussion regarding well positioned injection points on the
backbone (QUANTUMINSERT) i have not yet seen discussion of using these
well positioned injection points for covert network connections.

consider that you are eavesdropping on return path for a given
un-used, high address space of a third party (a lot of that 15.0.0.0/8
is idle :)

consider that you can inject arbitrary packets into the egress for
same net block (even if upstream, still sufficient to match route).

you can now establish a covert TCP connection appearing to come from
the high space of 15.0.0.0/8, of which HP only sees the returning
(encrypted) martians. (and this assumes they're even watching!)

this "wide stack" approach provides cover via multitudes of idle
address spaces of third parties, while the actual communicators are
hidden.

anxiously awaiting the details on how this is used...

*sacrifices chickens to the "Snowden Release Gatekeepers" (TM)*

From l at odewijk.nl  Tue Nov 26 12:47:18 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 21:47:18 +0100
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/26 Sean Lynch 

> On Mon, Nov 25 2013, Jim Bell wrote:
>

Please don't confuse an assassination market with Bitcoin. Both can exist
without each other. One does not require the other and none is a direct
result of the other. They are extremely complementary.

Regarding general disagreement with Bitcoin: there's really no point
resisting mathematics. And at this point the deflation of Bitcoin is about
as tied to a mathematical certainty as reality ever gets. It's a market
thingy. Early adopters get *huge* advantages. Knowledge presses the price
harder than risk. Anyway.

Having multiple Bitcoins isn't much going to solve your problems. No other
currency will be without it's own flavor of problems. As a rule of thumb:
if the math is sound but it seems illogical, check yourself. If you can't
check the math, don't trust it.

Having multiple cryptocurrencies would be nice. But Ripple for example
sucks in comparison.

Again, this thread is not about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

Regarding assassination markets I don't think this particular one isn't too
special. I also think any form of assassination should be communally
prevented. Of course anonymity, which always exists in some form, makes it
impossible. I'm not sure making it as in-your-face as Tor+Bitcoin is doing
it right now is better or worse. Sure is fair when knowledge isn't the
deciding factor.

Bottom line: whatever, I hope it doesn't take off. I like safety and wish
it weren't a marketable good. I'm still not sure how far this extends into
healthcare, but I hope development in the area makes the choice easier
(just take care of them is my preferred answer).

Best regards,
Lewis
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From hashem at riseup.net  Tue Nov 26 19:18:41 2013
From: hashem at riseup.net (Hashem Nasarat)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 22:18:41 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
Message-ID: <52956491.3030506@riseup.net>

On 11/26/2013 08:39 PM, James A. Donald wrote:
> On 2013-11-27 10:26, Al Billings wrote:
>> If democracy doesn’t work, what are people suggesting? Is this when the
>> Libertarian masks come off?
> 
> ...Or perhaps a republic with the franchise limited to property owning
> heads of households with good credit records.
> 

Well... I believe this is what we had in the inception of the US.

Nothing like good wealthy land owners to run a country well.
Would could be more telling of a person's privilege (nay, right!) to
rule others than a history of wealth?

Because war, slavery, genocide, were definitely not byproducts of having
a homogeneous in-group that controlled all areas of wealth and power...

F-- would not read your emails again.

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From juan.g71 at gmail.com  Tue Nov 26 17:25:46 2013
From: juan.g71 at gmail.com (Juan Garofalo)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 22:25:46 -0300
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>
Message-ID: <7D04333EC666E275042CE753@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>

--On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 8:06 PM -0500 Ted Smith 
wrote:

> On Wed, 2013-11-27 at 01:36 +0100, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
>> On Nov 27, 2013 1:25 AM, "Ted Smith"  wrote:
>> > 
>> > On Tue, 2013-11-26 at 11:07 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:
>> > > At 05:43 PM 11/25/2013, David Vorick wrote:
>> > 
>> > Absolutely. It's utterly absurd to claim that Satoshi got moderately
>> > wealthy (not hyperrich yet by any means) by "doing nothing." There
>> are
>> > insights in Bitcoin enough to fuel dozens of PhDs worth of research,
>> in
>> > wider areas than 
>> 
>> Says more about PhD's than Satoshi. The money he'll earn with Bitcoin
>> has no direct relationship to his investment. It is unlikely that,
>> through coincidence, his reward is set nearly right. Regardless of
>> your idea of right.
>> 
>> Lack of knowledge is the fail of all markets.
> 
> I'm not sure how you're evaluating his "investment," which was solving a
> number of previously-thought-unsolvable problems in applied cryptography

	Such as? 

> in a way that became wildly popular, widely used, and enabled a large
> amount of very influential services. 
> 
> Contributing to the world in such a manner rarely results in such
> wealth, but I don't see why it shouldn't. 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Sent from Ubuntu
>  

From juan.g71 at gmail.com  Tue Nov 26 17:27:05 2013
From: juan.g71 at gmail.com (Juan Garofalo)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 22:27:05 -0300
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

Message-ID: <8166C40AB7625715561BD6E5@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>

--On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 8:16 PM -0500 "Bill St. Clair"
 wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 8:06 PM, Ted Smith  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> I'm not sure how you're evaluating his "investment," which was solving a
>> number of previously-thought-unsolvable problems in applied cryptography
>> in a way that became wildly popular, widely used, and enabled a large
>> amount of very influential services.
>> 
>> Contributing to the world in such a manner rarely results in such
>> wealth, but I don't see why it shouldn't.
> 
> Indeed. His invention is worth whatever value the market assigns it, and
> it's nobody's business to judge otherwise.

	What market? Bitcoin exists because of the state, just like drug dealers. 

	If there were a real free market out there nobody would bother with
something like bitcoin.

> 
> -Bill
>  

From nulldev at hush.com  Tue Nov 26 15:32:30 2013
From: nulldev at hush.com (CJ Knight)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 23:32:30 +0000
Subject: NSA TAO Botnet
Message-ID: <4f9793ccaece378ebb4bd88dc329e903@smtp.hushmail.com>

I noticed this published here in the UK; the Guardian's drip-feeding
apparently didn't deem this one important enough for them to run.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/25/nsa_botnet/

"Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports that the elite NSA TAO
(Tailored Access Operations) hacking squad had used malware to establish
a zombie army with tentacles all across the world.

The malware serves as a sleeper agent on compromised PCs, waiting months
or longer before it activates and begins harvesting data. This stolen
information is covertly fed into the NSA's voracious data processing
apparatus. The malware (or "implants" in the lexicon of the NSA) is
slung onto compromised machines using Computer Network Exploitation, or
hacking, tactics."

Regards, CJ
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From tedks at riseup.net  Tue Nov 26 20:35:01 2013
From: tedks at riseup.net (Ted Smith)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 23:35:01 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

 <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com> <52956491.3030506@riseup.net>
 <52956C1D.8020707@echeque.com>

Message-ID: <1385526901.12707.6.camel@anglachel>

On Tue, 2013-11-26 at 20:25 -0800, Al Billings wrote:
> Ha ha ha. Omfg.
> 
> 
> Crypto-monarchists and slavery apologetics.
> 
> 
> This *is* the list that keeps on giving.
> 
> 
> Someone cue the randroid ubermensch. 

It's not really crypto-monarchism if the answer to "What else if not
democracy" is "Monarchism."

That's just... monarchism.
-- 
Sent from Ubuntu
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From moritz at headstrong.de  Tue Nov 26 15:51:40 2013
From: moritz at headstrong.de (Moritz)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 00:51:40 +0100
Subject: NSA TAO Botnet
In-Reply-To: <4f9793ccaece378ebb4bd88dc329e903@smtp.hushmail.com>
References: <4f9793ccaece378ebb4bd88dc329e903@smtp.hushmail.com>
Message-ID: <5295340C.2070001@headstrong.de>

On 11/27/2013 12:32 AM, CJ Knight wrote:
> "Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports that the elite NSA TAO
> (Tailored Access Operations) hacking squad had used malware to establish
> a zombie army with tentacles all across the world.

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/11/this-is-how-the-internet-backbone-has-been-turned-into-a-weapon

[...] All it takes is a single request from a victim passing a wiretap
for exploitation to occur. Once the QUANTUM wiretap identifies the
victim, it simply packet injects a 302 redirect to a FOXACID server. Now
the victim’s browser starts talking to the FOXACID server, which quickly
takes over the victim’s computer. The NSA calls this QUANTUMINSERT.

From l at odewijk.nl  Tue Nov 26 16:06:29 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 01:06:29 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385432659.12245.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <1385432659.12245.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/26 Jim Bell 

> At this point, how much real 'risk' would there be in a new digital
> currency?  Far less than BTC.

I think this is a very interesting question. You're still left with the
same problems though. Unless you can make the coin's real-life value
constant in some way. Best I can come up with is increasing mining payout
with the difficulty. That'll link the value of a coin to the cost of
mining, directly. Meaning you can turn electricity into coin, but not the
other way around. I suppose you'll need demurrage because else the coin
will inflate beyond making mining cost neutral, and the mining rates will
decline accordingly.

Actually.. Why isn't this how Bitcoin worked in the first place? Maybe it
just complicates things too much.
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From l at odewijk.nl  Tue Nov 26 16:09:09 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 01:09:09 +0100
Subject: NSA TAO Botnet
In-Reply-To: <5295340C.2070001@headstrong.de>
References: <4f9793ccaece378ebb4bd88dc329e903@smtp.hushmail.com>
 <5295340C.2070001@headstrong.de>
Message-ID: 

Does anyone see surprise on my face?

No?

Sure?

Check once more, c'mon.

Seriously? Nothing?

Now why's that?
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From l at odewijk.nl  Tue Nov 26 16:12:53 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 01:12:53 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/27 

>  > Democracy does not work.  With bribery, we at least get the best
>  > politicians money can buy.
>
> I am betting that you define an honest politician as
> one who having been bought stays bought.

And best by "agrees with the richest guy in the room"
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From l at odewijk.nl  Tue Nov 26 16:36:32 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 01:36:32 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>
Message-ID: 

On Nov 27, 2013 1:25 AM, "Ted Smith"  wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2013-11-26 at 11:07 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:
> > At 05:43 PM 11/25/2013, David Vorick wrote:
>
> Absolutely. It's utterly absurd to claim that Satoshi got moderately
> wealthy (not hyperrich yet by any means) by "doing nothing." There are
> insights in Bitcoin enough to fuel dozens of PhDs worth of research, in
> wider areas than

Says more about PhD's than Satoshi. The money he'll earn with Bitcoin has
no direct relationship to his investment. It is unlikely that, through
coincidence, his reward is set nearly right. Regardless of your idea of
right.

Lack of knowledge is the fail of all markets.
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From jamesd at echeque.com  Tue Nov 26 10:02:45 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 04:02:45 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
Message-ID: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-26 20:38, Guido Witmond wrote:
> If a politician takes a bribe, that is done without accountability to
> the public.

Democracy does not work.  With bribery, we at least get the best 
politicians money can buy.

From jamesd at echeque.com  Tue Nov 26 15:04:37 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 09:04:37 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: <52952905.60509@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-27 04:29, Al Billings wrote:
> What do you bribe an ex-president (out of office since the millennium)
> to do for you when lecturing?

When he is in power, you put large sums of money under his effective 
control, but not under his name.  Out of power, the money gets laundered 
to him by various means, among them inflated speaking fees.

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Wed Nov 27 10:49:22 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 10:49:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

Message-ID: <1385578162.80373.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

From: Lodewijk andré de la porte 

2013/11/27 Ted Smith 

I'm not sure how you're evaluating his "investment," which was solving a
>number of previously-thought-unsolvable problems in applied cryptography
>in a way that became wildly popular, widely used, and enabled a large
>amount of very influential services.
>

>Then how can you say his work was published into any sort of market?

Contributing to the world in such a manner rarely results in such
>wealth, but I don't see why it shouldn't.
>Okay. Let me explain it a little bit.

>Satoshi (and maybe some buddies in the very-very-early days) is (are?) estimated to have 1.5MBTC (M for million, m for milli, k?). That's worth >about 900MEUR now. Let's make a generous assumption, that Satoshi started working on Bitcoin right after DigiCash bankrupted (1998). That >assumption is a bucket of nonesense, I think 2/3 years would be more right. Thebitcoin wiki tells us he "has claimed that he has been working on >Bitcoin since 2007", the Bitcoin software was released 2009. Paper distributed in 2008.

>Okay so: 1.5MBTC for 2 years. I doubt I'd have to show you that no other scientist, no matter his contribution, got quite that amount of money for >his efforts. In fact most scientists waive what little they get because they do not need it (their dedication is to science, not to carnal pleasures). >1.5MBTC for 11 years is still a pretty high salary. But this is in "employment terms".

>If we compare to people like the creator of SnapChat, a hyperflawed consequence free multimedia application (media is deleted after being >viewed for a specified amount of seconds), who's product is apperently worth 4 billion on a functional market. We're doing okay right now, >because something far more usefull (it is) is priced at 1/4th of the price of SnapChat.

>However if you believe Bitcoin will stay at around 600 euro's (oh wait it's 700 today already, haha) than that's quite strange. If you think it'll stay at >around 4x more (2400) than you're probably still thinking quite strangely. See, Bitcoin has a very unusual market mechanic. And Satoshi is >rewarding himself in how much the system is used, the sum of all banks his software replaces will be his money. But nobody is paying him directly >and his efforts are definitely not a markted good.

>Why shouldn't it? Because if satoshi lives in a huge home, spending freely, with several people assisting him in whatever whilst owning some >companies that'll do things he deems important (squirrle rescue patrol, private police, education, art displays, helping the poor, etc) then he didn't >need this much. Having this much of what might become world wealth simply isn't reasonable for what the money stands for. Somewhere I feel it >unfair that someone who works at the top of his abilities in a more profitable field gets paid more, but it isn't actually unfair. But the amount of >buying power that Satoshi now represents is so exeedingly vast, and will be so much vaster, I cannot fantom it "fair".

>The best we can go for is the amount being "realistic" and "result of a fair and honest process". And I think that because a buyer of Bitcoin has no >reason to be interested in economic or Satoshi, just in his personal profits, we have a game-theory situation where Satoshi is paid in a way that >nobody is interested in observing. After all, every Bitcoin you buy makes the Bitcoin scarcer at your expense and Satoshi profits. And because of >this game theory problem I don't feel there is a market-related effect being placed on Satoshi's efforts.

>The bottom line is: wealth distribution fairness was never a core design goal of Bitcoin.
BRAVO!   A magnificent explanation, and I agree in all the details.  The design of the Bitcoin system contained hidden 'features' (for Satoshi) that were designed to earn him the 'seigniorage'   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage of a rather large portion of the Bitcoins issued early in the process.  Accident?  I don't think so.  I've already said that I think Satoshi's entitled to about $1 billion (USD), approximately, as reward for what he has done.  Which, about now, he has received.  (At current Bitcoin prices, or at least as of a month or so ago.)  But, as you also noticed, the situation isn't static, and he is virtually guaranteed far more value if he simply doesn't cash-in his current Bitcoin holdings.  This isn't market-driven:  It is algorithm-driven, defined by the assumptions and decisions baked into the software Satoshi 'so generously' (!!!  Sarcasm-warning!) provided the world.  Had just a few things been changed,
 the amount he could reasonably have expected to 'earn' would have been very different.  Bitcoin should have been harder to 'mine' at the beginning than it was; Bitcoin should be easier to 'mine' now than it actually is.  I think that it is the ratio of these difficulties which define how much advantage an early-adopter has had over those who came later.  This difference is not defined by a law of nature, it is defined by algorithm and software.  And I strongly doubt that many people (other than Satoshi) realized this in 2009.
          Jim Bell
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From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Wed Nov 27 03:04:28 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey (Phone))
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 11:04:28 +0000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
Message-ID: 

Methinks you are conflating "elected representation" with "democracy". Election of tenured representatives is only one (failure) mode of democracy, one so terrible the old Athenians likened to oligarchy.

Other modes exist: some have been extensively stress tested, such as sortition (Athens). Others haven't seen as much testing because they aren't really possible to implement without modern networking, and even so require very careful implementation, such as liquid/direct democracy without tenure.

Saying "democracy doesn't work" is meaningless. Democracy means, in ideal, "rule by the governed". If your examples don't fit that criteria, they're not really democracies, just as the USSR wasn't really socialism, England isn't really monarchism, and The Republic of Ireland (not currently concerning itself with matters of the res publica/ public interest) isn't really a Republic.

"James A. Donald"  wrote:
>On 2013-11-27 10:26, Al Billings wrote:
>> If democracy doesn’t work, what are people suggesting? Is this when
>the
>> Libertarian masks come off?
>
>Monarchy, anarcho capitalism, anarcho piratism, military dictatorship. 
>Or perhaps a republic with the franchise limited to property owning 
>heads of households with good credit records.
>
>Observe that police in wealthy neighborhoods are much better than
>police 
>in poor neighborhoods.  Do you think that is the result of voting?
>
>You presumably agree that the people's popular democracies were not all
>
>that democratic, because they made sure that everyone voted communist, 
>and a party member always got elected, and it did not matter who got 
>elected anyway since actual decisions were made elsewhere.
>
>Well that is pretty much the system we have in the western democracies.
>
>  The actual decisions are made by the permanent and fireproof 
>bureaucracy. If the elections come out wrong, they ignore the result
>and 
>work to make sure the next elections come out right.
>Brainwashing in school, population replacement, and if that does not 
>work, the permanent and unelected government just ignores the outcome
>of 
>the vote, as for example the various votes on affirmative action and 
>immigration.
>
>One demotic regime, turns out in practice to be remarkably similar to 
>another demotic regime.

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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From l at odewijk.nl  Wed Nov 27 02:06:00 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 11:06:00 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/27 Ted Smith 

> I'm not sure how you're evaluating his "investment," which was solving a
> number of previously-thought-unsolvable problems in applied cryptography
> in a way that became wildly popular, widely used, and enabled a large
> amount of very influential services.
>

Then how can you say his work was published into any sort of market?

> Contributing to the world in such a manner rarely results in such
> wealth, but I don't see why it shouldn't.
>

Okay. Let me explain it a little bit.

Satoshi (and maybe some buddies in the very-very-early days) is (are?)
estimated to have 1.5MBTC (M for million, m for milli, k?). That's worth
about 900MEUR now. Let's make a generous assumption, that Satoshi started
working on Bitcoin right after DigiCash bankrupted (1998). That assumption
is a bucket of nonesense, I think 2/3 years would be more right.
Thebitcoin wiki
tells us he "has claimed that he has been working on Bitcoin since 2007",
the Bitcoin software was released 2009. Paper distributed in 2008.

Okay so: 1.5MBTC for 2 years. I doubt I'd have to show you that no other
scientist, no matter his contribution, got quite that amount of money for
his efforts. In fact most scientists waive what little they get because
they do not need it (their dedication is to science, not to carnal
pleasures). 1.5MBTC for 11 years is still a pretty high salary. But this is
in "employment terms".

If we compare to people like the creator of SnapChat, a hyperflawed
consequence free multimedia application (media is deleted after being
viewed for a specified amount of seconds), who's product is apperently
worth 4 billion on a functional market. We're doing okay right now, because
something far more usefull (it is) is priced at 1/4th of the price of
SnapChat.

However if you believe Bitcoin will stay at around 600 euro's (oh wait it's
700 today already, haha) than that's quite strange. If you think it'll stay
at around 4x more (2400) than you're probably still thinking quite
strangely. See, Bitcoin has a very unusual market mechanic. And Satoshi is
rewarding himself in how much the system is used, the sum of all banks his
software replaces will be his money. But nobody is paying him directly and
his efforts are definitely not a markted good.

Why shouldn't it? Because if satoshi lives in a huge home, spending freely,
with several people assisting him in whatever whilst owning some companies
that'll do things he deems important (squirrle rescue patrol, private
police, education, art displays, helping the poor, etc) then he didn't need
this much. Having this much of what might become world wealth simply isn't
reasonable for what the money stands for. Somewhere I feel it unfair that
someone who works at the top of his abilities in a more profitable field
gets paid more, but it isn't actually unfair. But the amount of buying
power that Satoshi now represents is so exeedingly vast, and will be so
much vaster, I cannot fantom it "fair".

The best we can go for is the amount being "realistic" and "result of a
fair and honest process". And I think that because a buyer of Bitcoin has
no reason to be interested in economic or Satoshi, just in his personal
profits, we have a game-theory situation where Satoshi is paid in a way
that nobody is interested in observing. After all, every Bitcoin you buy
makes the Bitcoin scarcer at your expense and Satoshi profits. And because
of this game theory problem I don't feel there is a market-related effect
being placed on Satoshi's efforts.

The bottom line is: wealth distribution fairness was never a core design
goal of Bitcoin.
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From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Wed Nov 27 03:06:01 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey (Phone))
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 11:06:01 +0000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52956491.3030506@riseup.net>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
 <52956491.3030506@riseup.net>
Message-ID: <29d61c4d-29db-4649-95e6-cc26021db236@email.android.com>

>F-- would not read your emails again.

:D

Hashem Nasarat  wrote:
>
>
>On 11/26/2013 08:39 PM, James A. Donald wrote:
>> On 2013-11-27 10:26, Al Billings wrote:
>>> If democracy doesn’t work, what are people suggesting? Is this when
>the
>>> Libertarian masks come off?
>> 
>> ...Or perhaps a republic with the franchise limited to property
>owning
>> heads of households with good credit records.
>> 
>
>Well... I believe this is what we had in the inception of the US.
>
>Nothing like good wealthy land owners to run a country well.
>Would could be more telling of a person's privilege (nay, right!) to
>rule others than a history of wealth?
>
>Because war, slavery, genocide, were definitely not byproducts of
>having
>a homogeneous in-group that controlled all areas of wealth and power...
>
>F-- would not read your emails again.

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Wed Nov 27 03:08:37 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey (Phone))
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 11:08:37 +0000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385526901.12707.6.camel@anglachel>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
 <52956491.3030506@riseup.net> <52956C1D.8020707@echeque.com>

 <1385526901.12707.6.camel@anglachel>
Message-ID: <945b657d-5e61-433b-b952-1bae22d2f18e@email.android.com>

Well, it's crypto-monarchism if nobody knows who or where the
Queen is right? But they recognise the edicts of the divinely ordained ruler by her signatures, or a zero-knowledge proof of crypto-crown ownership?

Ted Smith  wrote:
>On Tue, 2013-11-26 at 20:25 -0800, Al Billings wrote:
>> Ha ha ha. Omfg.
>> 
>> 
>> Crypto-monarchists and slavery apologetics.
>> 
>> 
>> This *is* the list that keeps on giving.
>> 
>> 
>> Someone cue the randroid ubermensch. 
>
>
>It's not really crypto-monarchism if the answer to "What else if not
>democracy" is "Monarchism."
>
>That's just... monarchism.
>-- 
>Sent from Ubuntu

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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From guido at witmond.nl  Wed Nov 27 02:33:30 2013
From: guido at witmond.nl (Guido Witmond)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 11:33:30 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52952905.60509@echeque.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
  <52952905.60509@echeque.com>
Message-ID: <5295CA7A.6040402@witmond.nl>

On 11/27/13 00:04, James A. Donald wrote:
> On 2013-11-27 04:29, Al Billings wrote:
>> What do you bribe an ex-president (out of office since the
>> millennium) to do for you when lecturing?
> 
> When he is in power, you put large sums of money under his effective 
> control, but not under his name.  Out of power, the money gets
> laundered to him by various means, among them inflated speaking
> fees.
> 
> 

Bitcoin cannot stop corruption but it may make it harder to hide. Hence,
easier to detect.

My hope is that Bitcoin is transparent enough for action groups to
investigate and bring the dirty laundry into the sunlight.

My worry is that by using intermediate payment providers, this
transparency gets lost due to 'banking sectrets'.

My point was that money == power and power needs to be checked. Not by
those in power.

Now we disagree on the method of doing something against those that
abuse the money. :-)

Guido.

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From jamesd at echeque.com  Tue Nov 26 17:39:33 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 11:39:33 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

Message-ID: <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-27 10:26, Al Billings wrote:
> If democracy doesn’t work, what are people suggesting? Is this when the
> Libertarian masks come off?

Monarchy, anarcho capitalism, anarcho piratism, military dictatorship. 
Or perhaps a republic with the franchise limited to property owning 
heads of households with good credit records.

Observe that police in wealthy neighborhoods are much better than police 
in poor neighborhoods.  Do you think that is the result of voting?

You presumably agree that the people's popular democracies were not all 
that democratic, because they made sure that everyone voted communist, 
and a party member always got elected, and it did not matter who got 
elected anyway since actual decisions were made elsewhere.

Well that is pretty much the system we have in the western democracies. 
  The actual decisions are made by the permanent and fireproof 
bureaucracy. If the elections come out wrong, they ignore the result and 
work to make sure the next elections come out right.
Brainwashing in school, population replacement, and if that does not 
work, the permanent and unelected government just ignores the outcome of 
the vote, as for example the various votes on affirmative action and 
immigration.

One demotic regime, turns out in practice to be remarkably similar to 
another demotic regime.

From eugen at leitl.org  Wed Nov 27 03:01:58 2013
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 12:01:58 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <52952905.60509@echeque.com> <5295CA7A.6040402@witmond.nl>

Message-ID: <20131127110158.GT10793@leitl.org>

On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 12:52:33PM +0200, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
> On 2013-11-27, Guido Witmond wrote:
> 
> >Bitcoin cannot stop corruption but it may make it harder to hide.
> 
> How, precisely, compared to what we have now?

Transactions are in a global ledger. You might not be able
to link warm bodies to a specific account directly, but 
indirectly (especially, if they engage in transactions,
or want to convert their currency). This is more difficult 
with banknotes, even if you have the serial numbers on record. 
Banknotes do not globally broadcast their current location.

> >My hope is that Bitcoin is transparent enough for action groups to
> >investigate and bring the dirty laundry into the sunlight.
> 
> My and most cryptoanarchist's hope, I believe, is the precise
> opposite. At least I think BitCoin is woefully inadequate in the
> anonymity department, and should be made better so that no action

This is the tradeoff of having a practical system. I personally
think that anonymous cash is orthogonal to the digital cash issue.
It can be done in a different system, or use an anonymization layer
like Tor, I2P or cjdns operates on top of TCP/IP.

> group, government, anybody at all, can trace godfuck about what
> happened with it. Most certainly that "dirt" is just the killer app
> for any and all crypto currency. Not a bug, but the primary feature
> of the arrangement.

From guido at witmond.nl  Wed Nov 27 03:13:10 2013
From: guido at witmond.nl (Guido Witmond)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 12:13:10 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
  <52952905.60509@echeque.com>
 <5295CA7A.6040402@witmond.nl>

Message-ID: <5295D3C6.9060200@witmond.nl>

On 11/27/13 11:52, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
> On 2013-11-27, Guido Witmond wrote:
> 
>> Bitcoin cannot stop corruption but it may make it harder to hide.
> 
> How, precisely, compared to what we have now?

Any direct transactions between bribers and bribees will be visible in
the blockchain. It forces politicians to get other mechanisms, such as
the public speaking arrangements like those of ex-presidents.

> 
>> My worry is that by using intermediate payment providers, this
>> transparency gets lost due to 'banking secrets'.
> 
> I on the other hand worry about how much transparency such intermediates
> still afford. Because there should be none at all. Full opaqueness is
> what we ultimately strive for. Or why do you think anybody would want to
> go with crypto in the first place?

My worry is that the transparency of these 'banks' is one way only,
towards the despots. Not towards the people. Just like the problem with
SWIFT. My payment records get hauled to the US, what can I learn at
SWIFT of the US-payments? We needed a whistle blower to learn about the
black budget.

>> My point was that money == power and power needs to be checked. Not by
>> those in power.
> 
> Good money is *individual*, *distributed* power. Not power in the sense
> of a central despot. It's power in the sense of power to the people,
> individual and several.

Most people don't regards money as power. They regard it as property.
That's why calls to 'vote with your wallet' are unsuccessful.

When we have transparent money, people will realise their power, and
learn of the consequences. It sucks when you cheat on your wife and the
whole world can find out about it.

It might also lead to more local currencies where a group of people have
the privacy of their group against the rest of the world. That certainly
diminishes the power of despots. Just like we can use cash to buy our
daily groceries.

These local currencies mustn't grow to be big banks, otherwise the
circle is complete and we're back at square one.

Guido.

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From decoy at iki.fi  Wed Nov 27 02:52:33 2013
From: decoy at iki.fi (Sampo Syreeni)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 12:52:33 +0200 (EET)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <5295CA7A.6040402@witmond.nl>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl>
 <1385489812.44610.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
  <52952905.60509@echeque.com>
 <5295CA7A.6040402@witmond.nl>
Message-ID: 

On 2013-11-27, Guido Witmond wrote:

> Bitcoin cannot stop corruption but it may make it harder to hide.

How, precisely, compared to what we have now?

> My hope is that Bitcoin is transparent enough for action groups to 
> investigate and bring the dirty laundry into the sunlight.

My and most cryptoanarchist's hope, I believe, is the precise opposite. 
At least I think BitCoin is woefully inadequate in the anonymity 
department, and should be made better so that no action group, 
government, anybody at all, can trace godfuck about what happened with 
it. Most certainly that "dirt" is just the killer app for any and all 
crypto currency. Not a bug, but the primary feature of the arrangement.

> My worry is that by using intermediate payment providers, this 
> transparency gets lost due to 'banking sectrets'.

I on the other hand worry about how much transparency such intermediates 
still afford. Because there should be none at all. Full opaqueness is 
what we ultimately strive for. Or why do you think anybody would want to 
go with crypto in the first place?

> My point was that money == power and power needs to be checked. Not by 
> those in power.

Good money is *individual*, *distributed* power. Not power in the sense 
of a central despot. It's power in the sense of power to the people, 
individual and several.
-- 
Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - decoy at iki.fi, http://decoy.iki.fi/front
+358-40-3255353, 025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2

From coderman at gmail.com  Wed Nov 27 13:13:29 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 13:13:29 -0800
Subject: ntru-crypto - Open Source NTRU Public Key Cryptography Algorithm and
 Reference Code
Message-ID: 

https://github.com/NTRUOpenSourceProject/ntru-crypto

"""
Security Innovation, Inc., the owner of the NTRU public key
cryptography system, made the intellectual property and a sample
implementation available under the Gnu Public License (GPL) in 2013
with the goal of enabling more widespread adoption of this superior
cryptographic technology. The system is also available for commercial
use under the terms of the Security Innovation Commercial License.

NTRU represents a significant improvement in the Public Key
cryptography world—it’s faster, stronger and smaller than virtually
any other system in use and it’s quantum computer resistant, making it
the best choice for current projects with lifetimes that extend into
the post quantum computer age....

NTRU is a lattice-based public key cryptosystem from Security
Innovation and the leading alternative to RSA and Elliptic Curve
Cryptography (ECC) due to its higher performance and resistance to
attacks from quantum computers. NTRU was developed in 1996 as a
visionary solution to cyber security challenges for the twenty-first
century. NTRU is based on a mathematical problem called the
“Approximate close lattice vector problem” and comprises three
algorithms: NTRUEncrypt, NTRUSign, and PASSSign. It has been reviewed
and published in scholarly journals and presented at Crypto,
Eurocrypt, and RSA, and has been adopted in IEEE and X9 standards

Because it is based on different math from RSA and ECC, the NTRU
algorithm has different cryptographic properties. At comparable
cryptographic strength, NTRU performs costly private key operations
much faster than RSA or ECC. In addition, NTRU's comparative
performance increases with the level of security required. As key
sizes increase by a factor of n, RSA's operations/second decrease by
about n3 whereas NTRU's decrease at n2.
"""

From coderman at gmail.com  Wed Nov 27 13:36:22 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 13:36:22 -0800
Subject: MONKEY PUZZLE timeline / history
Message-ID: 

per document cloud (mirror at http://cryptome.org/2013/11/nsa-microsoft.pdf)

MONKEY PUZZLE version 6 active as of Nov 2009.

when was first iteration of this effort fielded?  other versions?

*sacrifices more chickens to the "Snowden Release Gatekeepers" (TM)*...

From jamesd at echeque.com  Tue Nov 26 19:50:53 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 13:50:53 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <52956491.3030506@riseup.net>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
 <52956491.3030506@riseup.net>
Message-ID: <52956C1D.8020707@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-27 13:18, Hashem Nasarat wrote:
> Nothing like good wealthy land owners to run a country well.
> Would could be more telling of a person's privilege (nay, right!) to
> rule others than a history of wealth?
>
> Because war, slavery, genocide, were definitely not byproducts of having
> a homogeneous in-group that controlled all areas of wealth and power...

The level of warfare, slavery, and genocide seems to have increased 
steadily with the decline of kings as the world got more demotic

Those mightily indignant about slavery that substantially increased the 
living standards of those lucky enough "to catch the boat", as Mohammed 
Ali famously phrased it, just loved slavery that caused a hundred 
million or so to starve to death.  We also saw all the gliterati and the 
progressive intellectuals gathered to support Mengistu's slave state.

War increased from the days of the Restoration until World War II, after 
which we got the pax atomica, the peace of terror, the nuclear peace. 
Things were, during the nuclear peace, if not quiet, comparatively quiet.

Let us look at the middle east.  Would anyone be worried if one the 
monarchies had nukes?

No, they would be mightily relieved, confident that the Kings would keep 
the fanatics quiet.

But when the nearest thing to democracy in the middle east reaches for 
nuclear weapons, looks like the peace of terror may finally end in terror.

From juan.g71 at gmail.com  Wed Nov 27 09:22:16 2013
From: juan.g71 at gmail.com (Juan Garofalo)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 14:22:16 -0300
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>

Message-ID: 

> 
> Saying "democracy doesn't work" is meaningless. 

	That is because the term "democracy" itself is meanignless. 

> Democracy means, in
> ideal, "rule by the governed".

	See? "rule by the governed" is a contradiction in terms. 

> If your examples don't fit that criteria,
> they're not really democracies, just as the USSR wasn't really socialism,
> England isn't really monarchism, and The Republic of Ireland (not
> currently concerning itself with matters of the res publica/ public
> interest) isn't really a Republic.

> 
> "James A. Donald"  wrote:
>> On 2013-11-27 10:26, Al Billings wrote:
>>> If democracy doesn't work, what are people suggesting? Is this when
>> the
>>> Libertarian masks come off?
>> 
>> Monarchy, anarcho capitalism, anarcho piratism, military dictatorship. 
>> Or perhaps a republic with the franchise limited to property owning 
>> heads of households with good credit records.
>> 
>> Observe that police in wealthy neighborhoods are much better than
>> police 
>> in poor neighborhoods.  Do you think that is the result of voting?
>> 
>> You presumably agree that the people's popular democracies were not all
>> 
>> that democratic, because they made sure that everyone voted communist, 
>> and a party member always got elected, and it did not matter who got 
>> elected anyway since actual decisions were made elsewhere.
>> 
>> Well that is pretty much the system we have in the western democracies.
>> 
>>  The actual decisions are made by the permanent and fireproof 
>> bureaucracy. If the elections come out wrong, they ignore the result
>> and 
>> work to make sure the next elections come out right.
>> Brainwashing in school, population replacement, and if that does not 
>> work, the permanent and unelected government just ignores the outcome
>> of 
>> the vote, as for example the various votes on affirmative action and 
>> immigration.
>> 
>> One demotic regime, turns out in practice to be remarkably similar to 
>> another demotic regime.
> 
> -- 
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. 

From mike at gogulski.com  Wed Nov 27 05:58:23 2013
From: mike at gogulski.com (Mike Gogulski)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 14:58:23 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <945b657d-5e61-433b-b952-1bae22d2f18e@email.android.com>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>
 <52956491.3030506@riseup.net> <52956C1D.8020707@echeque.com>

 <1385526901.12707.6.camel@anglachel>
 <945b657d-5e61-433b-b952-1bae22d2f18e@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <5295FA7F.2060507@gogulski.com>

Oh no. Please not this. I forsee a grim future in which the fairy tails
are rewritten to have cryptoknights riding out to rescue
cryptoprincesses and return them to their cryptocastles... all sealed
with a cryptokiss... *shudder*

On 11/27/2013 12:08 PM, Cathal Garvey (Phone) wrote:
> Well, it's crypto-monarchism if nobody knows who or where the
> Queen is right? But they recognise the edicts of the divinely ordained
> ruler by her signatures, or a zero-knowledge proof of crypto-crown
> ownership?

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From mike at gogulski.com  Wed Nov 27 06:12:45 2013
From: mike at gogulski.com (Mike Gogulski)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 15:12:45 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <5295FDDD.3070703@gogulski.com>

The concern with the current price rise and deflationary aspect seems a
bit short-sighted to me.

The mining reward is algorithmically destined to fall to less than 1
Bitcoin per block somewhere around 2032
(https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply), at which point
around 99% of all Bitcoins that will ever exist will have already been
mind. In the intervening years, Bitcoin has the potential (I dream) to
draw in most or perhaps all of the global economy. The after-2030 state
then looks like a more or less fixed money supply (99% is mined by 2060).

This is early days. I liken it to the phenomenon of momentary shock
sometimes experienced when one sits on a train, perhaps reading a book,
and misidentifies what is seen out the window as the station suddenly
moving. We're still getting up to speed.

Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
--
You're still left with the
same problems though. Unless you can make the coin's real-life value
constant in some way. Best I can come up with is increasing mining payout
with the difficulty. That'll link the value of a coin to the cost of
mining, directly. Meaning you can turn electricity into coin, but not the
other way around. I suppose you'll need demurrage because else the coin
will inflate beyond making mining cost neutral, and the mining rates will
decline accordingly.

Actually.. Why isn't this how Bitcoin worked in the first place? Maybe it
just complicates things too much.

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From jayvansantos at gmail.com  Wed Nov 27 11:53:59 2013
From: jayvansantos at gmail.com (Jayvan Santos)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 15:53:59 -0400
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <58FE12A6AAC7C09469BAD108@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

 <1385578162.80373.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <58FE12A6AAC7C09469BAD108@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>
Message-ID: 

No man. This isn't r/Bitcoin -_-. Your argument has already been
invalidated thousands of times. I was enjoying the conversation before it
got hostile :/.
On Nov 27, 2013 3:47 PM, "Juan Garofalo"  wrote:

>
>
> --On Wednesday, November 27, 2013 8:36 PM +0100 Lodewijk andré de la porte
>  wrote:
>
> > 2013/11/27 Jim Bell 
> >
> >> This difference is not defined by a law of nature, it is defined by
> >> algorithm and software.  And I strongly doubt that many people (other
> >> than Satoshi) realized this in 2009.
> >
> >
> > I realized it shortly after reading the paper. Then checked the
> > realization for a few days before switching the denomination of my
> > savings. 2011
>
>
>         That's why you whine about bitcoin's 'reputation' being tarnished
> by evil
> drug dealers eh?
>
>         How long's the ponzi scheme going to last though?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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From juan.g71 at gmail.com  Wed Nov 27 11:46:01 2013
From: juan.g71 at gmail.com (Juan Garofalo)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 16:46:01 -0300
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting
 take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

 <1385578162.80373.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: <58FE12A6AAC7C09469BAD108@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>

--On Wednesday, November 27, 2013 8:36 PM +0100 Lodewijk andré de la porte
 wrote:

> 2013/11/27 Jim Bell 
> 
>> This difference is not defined by a law of nature, it is defined by
>> algorithm and software.  And I strongly doubt that many people (other
>> than Satoshi) realized this in 2009.
> 
> 
> I realized it shortly after reading the paper. Then checked the
> realization for a few days before switching the denomination of my
> savings. 2011  

	That's why you whine about bitcoin's 'reputation' being tarnished by evil
drug dealers eh? 

	How long's the ponzi scheme going to last though?

From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Wed Nov 27 10:05:12 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey (Phone))
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 18:05:12 +0000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>

Message-ID: 

Welp, I got you to concede in favour of semantic frippery, so I'm done here. :)

Juan Garofalo  wrote:
>
>> 
>> Saying "democracy doesn't work" is meaningless. 
>
>	That is because the term "democracy" itself is meanignless. 
>
>> Democracy means, in
>> ideal, "rule by the governed".
>
>	See? "rule by the governed" is a contradiction in terms. 
>
>
>> If your examples don't fit that criteria,
>> they're not really democracies, just as the USSR wasn't really
>socialism,
>> England isn't really monarchism, and The Republic of Ireland (not
>> currently concerning itself with matters of the res publica/ public
>> interest) isn't really a Republic.
>
>> 
>> "James A. Donald"  wrote:
>>> On 2013-11-27 10:26, Al Billings wrote:
>>>> If democracy doesn't work, what are people suggesting? Is this when
>>> the
>>>> Libertarian masks come off?
>>> 
>>> Monarchy, anarcho capitalism, anarcho piratism, military
>dictatorship. 
>>> Or perhaps a republic with the franchise limited to property owning 
>>> heads of households with good credit records.
>>> 
>>> Observe that police in wealthy neighborhoods are much better than
>>> police 
>>> in poor neighborhoods.  Do you think that is the result of voting?
>>> 
>>> You presumably agree that the people's popular democracies were not
>all
>>> 
>>> that democratic, because they made sure that everyone voted
>communist, 
>>> and a party member always got elected, and it did not matter who got
>
>>> elected anyway since actual decisions were made elsewhere.
>>> 
>>> Well that is pretty much the system we have in the western
>democracies.
>>> 
>>>  The actual decisions are made by the permanent and fireproof 
>>> bureaucracy. If the elections come out wrong, they ignore the result
>>> and 
>>> work to make sure the next elections come out right.
>>> Brainwashing in school, population replacement, and if that does not
>
>>> work, the permanent and unelected government just ignores the
>outcome
>>> of 
>>> the vote, as for example the various votes on affirmative action and
>
>>> immigration.
>>> 
>>> One demotic regime, turns out in practice to be remarkably similar
>to 
>>> another demotic regime.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. 

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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From l at odewijk.nl  Wed Nov 27 10:52:00 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 19:52:00 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <5295FDDD.3070703@gogulski.com>
References: 
 <5295FDDD.3070703@gogulski.com>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/27 Mike Gogulski 

> The concern with the current price rise and deflationary aspect seems a
> bit short-sighted to me.
>
> The mining reward is algorithmically destined to fall to less than 1
> Bitcoin per block somewhere around 2032
>

Yeah. That really doesn't matter left or rightwise.
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From l at odewijk.nl  Wed Nov 27 11:36:27 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 20:36:27 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <1385578162.80373.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

 <1385578162.80373.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/27 Jim Bell 

> This difference is not defined by a law of nature, it is defined by
> algorithm and software.  And I strongly doubt that many people (other than
> Satoshi) realized this in 2009.

I realized it shortly after reading the paper. Then checked the realization
for a few days before switching the denomination of my savings. 2011
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From l at odewijk.nl  Wed Nov 27 12:35:08 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 21:35:08 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <58FE12A6AAC7C09469BAD108@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

 <1385578162.80373.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <58FE12A6AAC7C09469BAD108@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/27 Juan Garofalo 

>  wrote:
> > 2013/11/27 Jim Bell 
> >
> >> This difference is not defined by a law of nature, it is defined by
> >> algorithm and software.  And I strongly doubt that many people (other
> >> than Satoshi) realized this in 2009.
> >
> >
> > I realized it shortly after reading the paper. Then checked the
> > realization for a few days before switching the denomination of my
> > savings. 2011
>
>         That's why you whine about bitcoin's 'reputation' being tarnished
> by evil
> drug dealers eh?
>

I would be totally fine with Bitcoin going darknet. Doesn't lower the
value. Problem is that all legitimate dealings are made much harder, and
humanity's freedom is decreased significantly. I wouldn't say I whined
about it though. And the whole part about evil is just the opinion of the
enforced legal system.

Our dear dread pirate was an insane moron for living in America though.
That doesn't change at all.

How long's the ponzi scheme going to last though?

This is the kind of scheme that could last indefinitely. I visualize a
ponzi scheme as a funnel shaped like piramid growing downwards. Every
"brick" layed at the bottom flows some air up and out through the tip. The
tip flows towards the creator of the system. All the pieces higher in the
piramid get some air too. In bitcoin the hole at the tip is closed.
Although the pressure on the top increases (there's some gravity effect)
there is no money dissapearing.

There's a significant illusion that everyone involved in the system could
"cash out" for a certain price. Market dynamics don't allow such an event
to occur though.

You'll note that all commodities follow the same mechanism, except for
commodities being translatable to other valueable things intrisically.
Currency, USD, EUR, JPY, pretty much all others too, follow the same
mechanism completely except for the fact that governments can (and do)
choose to inflate a currency.

I answered this extensively because people have become allergic to
discussing Bitcoin in the ponzi light. There's definitely similarities
between Bitcoin and a Ponzi scheme. It is *VITAL *to note that
*every currency* has those similarities, but they are not easily seen.

Best regards,
Lewis

ps: thanks for remembering my earlier comments about drug dealers :)
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From coderman at gmail.com  Wed Nov 27 21:46:08 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 21:46:08 -0800
Subject: [Full-disclosure] DEF CON 19 - hackers get hacked!
Message-ID: 

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 4:14 AM, coderman  wrote:
> ...
> seriously EOM this time.

well, what do you know, sunlight prevails! ;)

http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2013/11/drtbox-and-drt-surveillance-systems.html
 ... this is but a feeling; one aspect of the whole.[0]

0. "Blind men and an elephant"
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/

From coderman at gmail.com  Wed Nov 27 22:04:27 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 22:04:27 -0800
Subject: DEF CON 19 - hackers get hacked! , DEF CON 20 was not DRT
Message-ID: 

no, DC20 was not DRT.
  then i would feel bad for getting my ass handed to me...

(when i discover the codename for my retribution, it shall become my
headstone..)

From mjbecze at gmail.com  Wed Nov 27 21:59:44 2013
From: mjbecze at gmail.com (Martin Becze)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 00:59:44 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange
In-Reply-To: <20131127182457.29A14E5F8@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl> <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127182457.29A14E5F8@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
Message-ID: 

fuck politicians, we will 'vote' on that protocols that we want to run in
our society by mining.

On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:15 PM, Bill Stewart 
 wrote:

> At 10:02 AM 11/26/2013, James A. Donald wrote:
> > Democracy does not work.  With bribery, we at least get the best
> politicians money can buy.
>
> Nonsense - you should be able to buy much better politicians than the
> current clowns.
>
>
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From griffin at cryptolab.net  Wed Nov 27 22:14:49 2013
From: griffin at cryptolab.net (Griffin Boyce)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 01:14:49 -0500
Subject: DEF CON 19 - hackers get hacked!
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <5296DF59.1000108@cryptolab.net>

coderman wrote:
> well, what do you know, sunlight prevails! ;) 

  I'm going to go on record stating that this could, in fact, use more
context and *might not* be suitable for a one-off post presented with no
background.

  On the other hand, I learned that the Full Disclosure list is still
active, and that delights me for reasons not fully clear.

~Griffin

-- 
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

PGP: 0xD9D4CADEE3B67E7AB2C05717E331FD29AE792C97
OTR: saint at jabber.ccc.de

From david.vorick at gmail.com  Thu Nov 28 00:17:02 2013
From: david.vorick at gmail.com (David Vorick)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 03:17:02 -0500
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

Message-ID: 

I hadn't though about it this way until now, but having the ability to
achieve full anonymity on the internet enables things like this, and
assassination markets might not be the first or most viscous thing enabled
by anonymity.

I can imagine that if assassination markets were to take off, you'd see
some large bounties (in excess of $100k) on every major politician in the
world. Pretty much any figure of high popularity would probably have some
sort of assassination bounty on their head, because the more popular you
are, the more haters you have.

What other sorts of unacceptable things could you do given fully anonymous
money coupled with a fully anonymous internet identity? I can think of:

website takedowns
funding murder, rape, arson, etc.
bombing certain buildings
funding smear campaigns (say, tear the clothes off a popular celebrity or
something)
bounties for drugs, child porn, etc.
kidnappings
doxing

You could basically attempt to crowd fund any illegal activity.
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From wrightalexw at gmail.com  Thu Nov 28 03:30:15 2013
From: wrightalexw at gmail.com (alex wright)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 06:30:15 -0500
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

Message-ID: 

Not to mention all the horrific typos.  The pain grammar school teachers
suffer as a result of anonymous, uninhibited and over caffeinated
anarchists is one of the silent tragedies of our times.

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 3:17 AM, David Vorick wrote:

> I hadn't though about it this way until now, but having the ability to
> achieve full anonymity on the internet enables things like this, and
> assassination markets might not be the first or most viscous thing enabled
> by anonymity.
>
> I can imagine that if assassination markets were to take off, you'd see
> some large bounties (in excess of $100k) on every major politician in the
> world. Pretty much any figure of high popularity would probably have some
> sort of assassination bounty on their head, because the more popular you
> are, the more haters you have.
>
> What other sorts of unacceptable things could you do given fully anonymous
> money coupled with a fully anonymous internet identity? I can think of:
>
> website takedowns
> funding murder, rape, arson, etc.
> bombing certain buildings
> funding smear campaigns (say, tear the clothes off a popular celebrity or
> something)
> bounties for drugs, child porn, etc.
> kidnappings
> doxing
>
> You could basically attempt to crowd fund any illegal activity.
>

-- 
"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the
machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able
rightly
to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a
question."

-Charles Babbage, 19th century English mathematician, philosopher, inventor
and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable
computer.
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From pc at loom.cc  Thu Nov 28 07:16:37 2013
From: pc at loom.cc (Patrick Chkoreff)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 08:16:37 -0700
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

Message-ID: <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>

David Vorick wrote, On 11/28/2013 01:17 AM:

> website takedowns
> funding murder, rape, arson, etc.
> bombing certain buildings
> funding smear campaigns (say, tear the clothes off a popular celebrity
> or something)
> bounties for drugs, child porn, etc.
> kidnappings
> doxing
> 
> You could basically attempt to crowd fund any illegal activity.

You could also crowd fund an investigation of the abhorrent activities
listed above, finding the people who do such things and stopping them
with gentle persuasion.

That's good, because decent people outnumber sociopaths by a very large
margin.

-- Patrick

From jamesd at echeque.com  Wed Nov 27 15:56:39 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 09:56:39 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>

Message-ID: <529686B7.5000008@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-27 21:04, Cathal Garvey (Phone) wrote:
> Methinks you are conflating "elected representation" with "democracy".
> Election of tenured representatives is only one (failure) mode of
> democracy, one so terrible the old Athenians likened to oligarchy.
>
> Other modes exist: some have been extensively stress tested, such as
> sortition (Athens).

Athenian democracy self destructed much more rapidly than American 
democracy did, and for the next couple of millennia everyone pointed at 
Athens as proof that democracy was a very bad idea.

Elected officials have a very short time horizon.  Thus, for example, 
Obama said a whole lot of stuff that he knew would blow up in his face 
after the next election, because he was only worried about stuff that 
would blow up before the next election.  This was the big problem with 
Athenian democracy before its defeat in the Pelopenessian wars, the 
invasion of Sicily being an example of Athenian decision making ruled by 
short term political advantage without concern for the longer term 
consequence of catastrophic defeat and enormous loss of life.

Because of this problem, power tends to slide from their hands into the 
hands of a permanent and unelected elite, which is the situation we now 
have in America.  In the short term this alleviates the problems of 
democracy, but in the longer term, which is to say now, discipline 
within the permanent unelected elite breaks down, and they all steal 
from each other and the public, they succumb to the tragedy of the 
commons, which is the situation we now have.

From jamesd at echeque.com  Wed Nov 27 17:56:47 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 11:56:47 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <529686B7.5000008@echeque.com>
References: <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127000928.5D4D2228092@palinka.tinho.net>

  <52954D55.8040400@echeque.com>

 <529686B7.5000008@echeque.com>
Message-ID: <5296A2DF.9080209@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-28 09:56, I wrote:
 > Because of this problem, power tends to slide from the hands of
 > elected officials into the hands of a permanent and unelected elite, 
 > which is the situation we now have in America.
 >
 > In the short term this alleviates the problems of  democracy,
 > but in the longer term, which is to say now, discipline  within
 > the permanent unelected elite breaks down, and they all steal
 > from each other and the public, they succumb to the tragedy of
 > the  commons, which is the situation we now have.

Oligarchy suffers from the problem of tragedy of the commons, which
problem often winds up being solved by military dictatorship.
Thus democracy tends to wind up in the rule of one man, either
directly, as in the election of Napoleon the third, or by way of
oligarchy, as with Napoleon the first.

From jamesd at echeque.com  Wed Nov 27 18:28:12 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 12:28:12 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: <58FE12A6AAC7C09469BAD108@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

 <1385578162.80373.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <58FE12A6AAC7C09469BAD108@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>
Message-ID: <5296AA3C.3010104@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-28 05:46, Juan Garofalo wrote:
> 	How long's the ponzi scheme going to last though?

Money is a bubble that never pops.

From rsw at jfet.org  Thu Nov 28 12:19:44 2013
From: rsw at jfet.org (Riad S. Wahby)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 15:19:44 -0500
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange
In-Reply-To: <87vbzfr9s7.fsf@literati.org>
References: 
 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <87vbzfr9s7.fsf@literati.org>
Message-ID: <20131128201944.GA13852@antiproton.jfet.org>

Sean Lynch  wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 25 2013, coderman wrote:
> > surely there is prior art?
> 
> I just remembered, there is in fact prior art, though it's state of the
> art, as in "nearly practical." They're called SNARKs: Succinct
> Non-interactive ARguments of Knowledge. You can take any computation and
> annotate it sufficiently that whoever runs the computation can generate
> a (constant size) proof that they did it correctly in (nearly) constant
> time. Andrew Miller posted about it on the Tahoe-LAFS mailing list. See
> http://eprint.iacr.org/2013/507.pdf for one implementation.
>
> I'm not sure if you could use this for a Bitcoin-style problem, though,
> since I have no idea if the difficulty can be adjusted smoothly. It's
> interesting that we can now take ALL computations problems and turn
> them into the "easy to verify" variety, however.

Interesting to see this mentioned here. Mike Walfish and Andrew Blumberg
have written a nice survey on the work in this area:
    http://eccc.hpi-web.de/report/2013/165
Justin Thaler provides another perspective:
    http://mybiasedcoin.blogspot.com/2013/09/guest-post-by-justin-thaler-mini-survey.html

I can also add a little context to this conversation---I've actually
done an independent re-implementation of the work of Ben-Sasson et al
that Sean linked above.

At a high level, my take is that this area has huge potential, but
neither this work nor other projects in the area (summarized below) are
really practical---yet. The overhead for the party constructing the
proof is at least 3 orders of magnitude more than the cost of running
the computation directly. The work of Ben-Sasson et al costs more like 6
orders of magnitude! (In principle, though, they are paying this price
to achieve greater computational generality.)

The work required of the party verifying the computation is also 
non-trivial: while *checking* the answer is quick, these systems (with
one exception) require pre-processing work on the computation being
verified, and the cost of this is several orders of magnitude larger
than simply computing the result directly. (Note, however, that this
cost can be amortized by outsourcing the same computation over many
different inputs.)

But there is some real hope here: the rate at which progress is being
made is impressive (two years ago overhead was more like 20 orders of
magnitude than three!), and there are contexts where the extra work is
worth the cost. Perhaps one of these is a cryptocurrency that relies on
proof of "useful" work.

With regard to smooth difficulty adjustment: since the goal of most of
these projects is to encode arbitrary computations, the problems of
difficulty adjustment and proof of work become orthogonal.

For those wanting a bit more detail:

Broadly speaking, there are four research groups working on this stuff:
  - Ben-Sasson et al at Technion/Tel Aviv/MIT
        http://scipr-lab.org/
  - Parno et al at Microsoft Research
        http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=180286
  - Thaler et al at Harvard
        http://people.seas.harvard.edu/~jthaler/PracticalVerifiedComputation.html
  - Walfish et al at UT Austin/NYU (full disclosure: I work with these guys)
        http://cs.utexas.edu/pepper/

The work of Thaler et al is somehat distinct from the other three
because, while it is extremely efficient for certain computations,
it is not general: the efficiency improvements it offers are limited
to computations with a regular underlying structure. However, when
this requirement is met, it has very low overhead compared to the
other three systems, and it involves no costly pre-processing.

The three other groups have built systems that compile from a subset 
of C to a form whose result can be encoded into a probabilistically
checkable proof. The resulting PCP is huge, so in all three systems the
result is not the proof itself. Rather, the proof is queried and the
result used for verification. The method of querying is one
distinguishing factor between these systems.

Ben-Sasson et al and Parno et al share common ancestry in the work of
Gennaro et al, also at Microsoft Research.
    http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=180285
In both cases, the query/response take the form of a noninteractive
argument. Basically, the queries are encrypted and bundled into the
description of the computation ahead of time, after which the
computation can be run by providing an input and requesting an answer.
These systems also support public verifiability, allowing the answer to
be checked by anyone holding the public verification key.

The work of Ben-Sasson et al achieves more generality by encoding
computations as the execution of a virtual microprocessor, then
verifying correct execution of the processor. This system supports 
full C semantics and achieves an efficient abstraction for verified RAM
(again, at a penalty of 3 *additional* orders of magnitude beyond the
other systems).

The UT/NYU group have also adapted a simplification of Gennaro et al,
but their system really rests upon refinements of the efficient argument
systems of Ishai et al.
    http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~rafail/PUBLIC/79.pdf
In this case, verification involves two separate interactions, one that
establishes a commitment to the proof and one that queries it. Though it
requires interaction, the advantage of this approach is that it is
cryptographically simpler. Concretely, the crypto is one of the most
expensive parts of the system, so this simplification results in good
performance relative to the other systems.

The UT/NYU group have also developed verifiable storage abstractions,
including the ability to verify computations (in zero knowledge) on
hidden state for which you hold a cryptographic commitment.
    http://eprint.iacr.org/2013/356

-=rsw

From rysiek at hackerspace.pl  Thu Nov 28 08:14:02 2013
From: rysiek at hackerspace.pl (rysiek)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 17:14:02 +0100
Subject: DEF CON 19 - hackers get hacked!
In-Reply-To: <5296DF59.1000108@cryptolab.net>
References: 
 <5296DF59.1000108@cryptolab.net>
Message-ID: <4213594.2z5ZyUsfhT@lap>

Dnia czwartek, 28 listopada 2013 01:14:49 Griffin Boyce pisze:
> coderman wrote:
> > well, what do you know, sunlight prevails! ;)
> 
>   I'm going to go on record stating that this could, in fact, use more
> context and *might not* be suitable for a one-off post presented with no
> background.
> 
>   On the other hand, I learned that the Full Disclosure list is still
> active, and that delights me for reasons not fully clear.

So could we have the context now, please? :)

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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From l at odewijk.nl  Thu Nov 28 08:37:33 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 17:37:33 +0100
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

 <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/28 Patrick Chkoreff 

> You could also crowd fund an investigation of the abhorrent activities
> listed above, finding the people who do such things and stopping them
> with gentle persuasion.
>
> That's good, because decent people outnumber sociopaths by a very large
> margin.
>

Solving crime is also very much more expensive than causing it. And the
advantage to solving another person's problem is smaller than solving your
own.
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From cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me  Thu Nov 28 16:03:03 2013
From: cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me (Cathal Garvey)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 00:03:03 +0000
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

 <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>
Message-ID: <20131129000303.5027fe1d@Neptune>

> That's good, because decent people outnumber sociopaths by a very
> large margin.

But sociopaths tend to have a higher spending power, both because
sociopaths are less inhibited in the pursuit of profit at others'
expense, and because the acquisition of wealth and power is now well
established as a cause of acquired sociopathy.

So, sure. Plenty of nice people without the money to outbid awful
people. Pretty much what we have today; an oligarchy of wealthy
murderers without significant barrier. It's OK! The Market will fix
this!

On Thu, 28 Nov 2013 08:16:37 -0700
Patrick Chkoreff  wrote:

> David Vorick wrote, On 11/28/2013 01:17 AM:
> 
> > website takedowns
> > funding murder, rape, arson, etc.
> > bombing certain buildings
> > funding smear campaigns (say, tear the clothes off a popular
> > celebrity or something)
> > bounties for drugs, child porn, etc.
> > kidnappings
> > doxing
> > 
> > You could basically attempt to crowd fund any illegal activity.
> 
> 
> You could also crowd fund an investigation of the abhorrent activities
> listed above, finding the people who do such things and stopping them
> with gentle persuasion.
> 
> That's good, because decent people outnumber sociopaths by a very
> large margin.
> 
> 
> -- Patrick
> 

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From pc at loom.cc  Fri Nov 29 08:46:25 2013
From: pc at loom.cc (Patrick Chkoreff)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 09:46:25 -0700
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

 <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>

Message-ID: <5298C4E1.9050702@loom.cc>

Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote, On 11/28/2013 09:37 AM:

> Solving crime is also very much more expensive than causing it.

That doesn't matter.  All that matters is that the benefit of solving
the crime exceeds the cost of solving it.

Forget retribution.  The primary benefit of an investigation is the
insight which enables you to prevent future crimes.  That can be
enormously valuable in terms of life and property.

> And the advantage to solving another person's problem is smaller than
> solving your own.

The advantage is the same when your problems are the same, which is
often the case.

-- Patrick

From guido at witmond.nl  Fri Nov 29 02:54:43 2013
From: guido at witmond.nl (Guido Witmond)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 11:54:43 +0100
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <20131129000303.5027fe1d@Neptune>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

 <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc> <20131129000303.5027fe1d@Neptune>
Message-ID: <52987273.6040707@witmond.nl>

On 11/29/13 01:03, Cathal Garvey wrote:

> So, sure. Plenty of nice people without the money to outbid awful
> people. Pretty much what we have today; an oligarchy of wealthy
> murderers without significant barrier. It's OK! The Market will fix
> this!

Touché!

Guido.

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From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Fri Nov 29 10:23:44 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 12:23:44 -0600
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

 <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>

 <5298C4E1.9050702@loom.cc>

Message-ID: 

// apologies for interfering in the discussion...

On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:

> 2013/11/29 Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
>
>>
>> Forget retribution.  The primary benefit of an investigation is the
>> insight which enables you to prevent future crimes.  That can be
>> enormously valuable in terms of life and property.
>>
>
> Then why didn't you spend 10% of your wealth/income last year on
> investigating crime prevention? I appreciate that you feel this discussion
> is helping, and it's helping me get my thoughts clearer, but I truly think
> a community cannot be expected to behave in a way good for the community
> but bad for the individual.
>

(sidenote: what if a future "electronic monetary system" that relied on
community taxation would have a voting option, such that 50% of taxes go
towards a general system of operation, and the other 50%, say based on
income, can be steered into categories of funding (e.g. crime prevention).
such that localities or demographics could focus their tax contribution
towards the issues of most relevance. in a realm of electronic currency,
perhaps this could even be fractional, 0.001 percent of individual taxes
going toward certain issues, say specific hereditary disease research based
on given genetics, etc. and perhaps this micro-level adjustability of taxes
could help both at the general level and allow steering of policy towards a
more ground-up or public representational approach, via constituencies, by
how they vote through their directed tax-feedback; with a robust fielded
electronic monetary system, perhaps even a flat tax or sales tax model
could do such fractional micro-taxation at the POS cash register, via a
centralized system that sorts or divides a particular tax (for clothing,
say, at a store) and takes some amount for a general fund and a remainder
for such issues, as preferenced by each individual. info tech & currency
versus paper-based bureaucracy as it seems today with formwork, outdated
modeling for lightspeed data exchange and information transmission.)
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From pc at loom.cc  Fri Nov 29 14:44:03 2013
From: pc at loom.cc (Patrick Chkoreff)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 15:44:03 -0700
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

 <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>

 <5298C4E1.9050702@loom.cc>

Message-ID: <529918B3.4040205@loom.cc>

Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote, On 11/29/2013 10:38 AM:

>     That doesn't matter.  All that matters is that the benefit of solving
>     the crime exceeds the cost of solving it.

> I think we disagree here. Game theory doesn't support this standpoint.

Chuck game theory.  I'm not talking about an intricate prisoner's
dilemma with layers of feedback here, just a simple matter of benefit
versus cost.

> ... it's good for society if everyone just pays their taxes ...

I disagree, but it's irrelevant anyway.  I'm not talking about big chewy
abstractions like "society", just individual interest.

>     Forget retribution.  The primary benefit of an investigation is the
>     insight which enables you to prevent future crimes.  That can be
>     enormously valuable in terms of life and property.
> 
> 
> Then why didn't you spend 10% of your wealth/income last year on
> investigating crime prevention?

Because the benefit to me did not exceed that particular cost.  I did
however spend some amount of money and time on computer and physical
security.  Some of the benefits of my efforts are shared by others.

> I truly think a community cannot be expected to behave in a way good for
> the community but bad for the individual.

Thank goodness.  I can't imagine what such a horror could even mean in
the first place.

>     The advantage is the same when your problems are the same, which is
>     often the case.
> 
> I don't quite see this argument. A murderer and a police officer have
> opposing motives. A person in the street will back away from both to
> prevent getting hurt, even if he might help either achieve his/her goal.

It is generally wise for that person to back away, though in specific
instances people do find it mutually advantageous to look out for each
other.  As a small example, people in my neighborhood have alerted each
other to the presence of suspicious characters.

It amazes me that some glibly assert that people will voluntarily fund
the assassination of a politician, but would not voluntarily fund the
investigation of a string of crimes which cost money and lives. --
especially given that "crowdfunding" is all the rage these days.  The
view strikes me as excessively dismal and eeyorish.

-- Patrick

From l at odewijk.nl  Fri Nov 29 07:19:03 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 16:19:03 +0100
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl> <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127182457.29A14E5F8@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>

Message-ID: 

2013/11/28 Martin Becze 

> fuck politicians, we will 'vote' on that protocols that we want to run in
> our society by mining.

Why not just submit to the wealthy without this noisy waste of electricity?
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From coderman at gmail.com  Fri Nov 29 17:30:24 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 17:30:24 -0800
Subject: DEF CON 19 - hackers get hacked!
In-Reply-To: <4213594.2z5ZyUsfhT@lap>
References: 
 <5296DF59.1000108@cryptolab.net> <4213594.2z5ZyUsfhT@lap>
Message-ID: 

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 8:14 AM, rysiek  wrote:
> ...
> So could we have the context now, please? :)

timeline:

- 04/Aug/2011 DEF CON 19 begins!  LulzSec, Anonymous, many other lower
profile independent security enthusiasts and hacktivists (read: FBI
and $TLA targets of interest) in attendance.  presumably the large
numbers of foreign attendees, the "exigent circumstances", and
whatever other fig leaf legal justifications were applied, allowed the
following events to occur on US soil against US citizens without
warrants.

- 05/Aug/2011 08:00 AM-midnight-+2hrs, 06/Aug/2011 08:00
AM-midnight-+2hrs, 07/Aug/2011 08:00 AM-midnight, 08/Aug/2011 08:00
AM-noon, DEF CON 19 hackers targeted en masse via active MitM on
2.5G/3G/4G bands.  traditionally WiFi most hostile, this marked a
distinct change in threat landscape at the conference.  custom exploit
automation and ex-filtration via DRT tech at high power levels on
site.  the MitM position was specifically leveraged for secondary
attacks against vulnerable applications, update mechanisms,
communications, and core OS functionality spanning PC and mobile
systems.

- 10/Aug/2011 attacks disclosed on full-disclosure list; we had been
running custom ROMs and SDR kit through the conference, in addition to
"performance analysis" on the MitM exploit system (spoiler alert: it
was trivial to DoS via spoofed network endpoints and leases leading
for "fork bomb" effect of exploit threads launched to service attacks
against newly joining client on the network.  among other weaknesses
:)

- 24/Jul/2012 coderman arrives in Las Vegas for DEF CON 20, clear view
of Alexander's military transport on the tarmac.  immediately upon
landing all exceptionally hardened mobile test devices pwned via
baseband attacks while in airplane mode.  SDR and power monitoring
gear confirms exploitation and ex-filtration.  this was just the first
in a series of impression baseband and sensor level attacks.  coderman
never hacked so hard nor so thoroughly before; proper fucked. (months
and months of effort at Android kernel, system, and application level
hardening for naught)

- Jun+Jul+Aug+Sep+Oct+Nov/2013 the year of discontent, details emerge
on $TLA offensive operations against domestic targets, the role of
third party contractors and infosec industry collaborators in same.
singular events once considered anomalies or inscrutable now viewed in
the overall framework of understanding around pervasive in-security
and offensive operations as national security imperative.

... which leaves us where we are now: with networks, systems, and
software unable to defend against many of the attacks now
unambiguously and entirely clear to the public at large.

the ending to this tale yet to be determined!  [choose your own
adventure *grin*]

From l at odewijk.nl  Fri Nov 29 09:38:41 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 18:38:41 +0100
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <5298C4E1.9050702@loom.cc>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

 <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>

 <5298C4E1.9050702@loom.cc>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/29 Patrick Chkoreff 

> Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote, On 11/28/2013 09:37 AM:
> > Solving crime is also very much more expensive than causing it.
>
> That doesn't matter.  All that matters is that the benefit of solving
> the crime exceeds the cost of solving it.
>

I think we disagree here. Game theory doesn't support this standpoint. I am
sure having no crime would be better for humanity than the other way
around. But to commit a crime can be extremely profitable, emotionally or
financially. And for me to protect others is not profitable for me
directly. It's like taxes, it's good for society if everyone just pays
their taxes (provided the taxes are fair). But do I want to pay taxes? I
don't know anyone that looks forward to paying his taxes.

> Forget retribution.  The primary benefit of an investigation is the
> insight which enables you to prevent future crimes.  That can be
> enormously valuable in terms of life and property.
>

Then why didn't you spend 10% of your wealth/income last year on
investigating crime prevention? I appreciate that you feel this discussion
is helping, and it's helping me get my thoughts clearer, but I truly think
a community cannot be expected to behave in a way good for the community
but bad for the individual.

> > And the advantage to solving another person's problem is smaller than
> > solving your own.
>
> The advantage is the same when your problems are the same, which is
> often the case.
>

I don't quite see this argument. A murderer and a police officer have
opposing motives. A person in the street will back away from both to
prevent getting hurt, even if he might help either achieve his/her goal.
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From coderman at gmail.com  Fri Nov 29 18:42:40 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 18:42:40 -0800
Subject: DEF CON 19 - hackers get hacked!
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
 <5296DF59.1000108@cryptolab.net> <4213594.2z5ZyUsfhT@lap>

Message-ID: 

On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, coderman  wrote:
> ...
> - 24/Jul/2012 ... DEF CON 20

clarification:
DC20 was not DRT equipment; they were "in the towers" for DC20, and
focused primarily on baseband attacks. over 14 different tower
facilities linked to active attacks covering miles around the Rio.

From coderman at gmail.com  Fri Nov 29 19:16:01 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 19:16:01 -0800
Subject: Internetworked crimes against humanity [was: Interesting take on
 Sanjuro's Assassination Market]
Message-ID: 

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 3:30 AM, alex wright  wrote:
> Not to mention all the horrific typos.  The pain grammar school teachers
> suffer as a result of anonymous, uninhibited and over caffeinated anarchists
> is one of the silent tragedies of our times.

the Social Media Internet Generation has bequeathed unto the future
untold generations this intentionally careless and crass accosting of
common courtesy; unceasing, forever.

not just archived, but cultivated and analyzed, repeatedly, as some
part of a magnificent and meandering machine learning corpus across
the cloud...

(~_~;)   . o O ( weeping silently for humanity )

From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Fri Nov 29 17:18:49 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 19:18:49 -0600
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <20131130003550.B2D4622809E@palinka.tinho.net>
References: 
 <20131130003550.B2D4622809E@palinka.tinho.net>
Message-ID: 

forgot to mention: this fractional taxation that could be individually
routed to issues then could be a way of funding basic science or studies or
research outside of existing political frameworks and providing oversight
or for 'increasing support' for agencies such as the GAO in the US, via
what programs are given more prominence within policy (for instance if
issues of EMFs and cancer and telephony were put into policy via directed
tax funding).

also: the income-based structure of whatever this 'routable tax percentage'
may be called, would need to address vast income inequality, such that each
citizen has a certain proportion though some citizens should not have a
million-times more vote if wealthy and taxed. perhaps more of their taxes
would go to the general system fund allocated to basic government
operation, or some other way to keep the vote distributed by unique
individual views versus dominated by those with most all the money,
circulating and non-circulating.

(which brings up the issue of paper currency as ultimate
surveillance/monitoring system, if taking into account traffic analysis of
money from points A to B to C ... to N. while credit and debit is more
transparent about this, it is difficult to imagine a more useful model for
flow of money through a chain than tracking paper currency in exchange and
using this for all it is worth statistically, pre-internet, though
computer-dependent to parse all the data.)
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From coderman at gmail.com  Fri Nov 29 19:26:55 2013
From: coderman at gmail.com (coderman)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 19:26:55 -0800
Subject: Omidyar influence in new Greenwald venture [was: SRF: cryptic]
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: 

On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 7:02 PM, coderman  wrote:
> see http://cryptome.org/2013/11/omidyar-extraordinary.pdf
>
> the Omidyar buyout of Greenwald and Poitras apparently to shield the
> willful, disgraceful corporate role in pervasive privacy destruction
> by faux beating of the state proper, as embodied by the NSA, CIA, and
> their tax payer funded patsies...
>
> effective disclosure dies.

see also:
"Keeping Secrets: Pierre Omidyar, Glenn Greenwald and the
privatization of Snowden’s leaks"
http://pando.com/2013/11/27/keeping-secrets/
 - BY MARK AMES, NOVEMBER 27, 2013

---

Who “owns” the NSA secrets leaked by Edward Snowden to reporters Glenn
Greenwald and Laura Poitras?

Given that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar just invested a quarter of a
billion dollars to
personally hire Greenwald and Poitras for his new for-profit media
venture, it’s a question worth asking.

It’s especially worth asking since it became clear that Greenwald and
Poitras are now the only two people with full access to the complete
cache of NSA files, which are said to number anywhere from 50,000 to
as many as 200,000 files. That’s right: Snowden doesn’t have the files
any more, the Guardian doesn’t have them, the Washington Post doesn’t
have them… just Glenn and Laura at the for-profit journalism company
created by the founder of eBay.

Edward Snowden has popularly been compared to major whistleblowers
such as Daniel Ellsberg,Chelsea Manning and Jeffrey Wigand. However,
there is an important difference in the Snowden files that has so far
gone largely unnoticed. Whistleblowing has traditionally served the
public interest. In this case, it is about to serve the interests of a
billionaire starting a for-profit media business venture. This is
truly unprecedented. Never before has such a vast trove of public
secrets been sold wholesale to a single billionaire as the foundation
of a for-profit company.

Think about other famous leakers: Daniel Ellsberg neither monetized
nor monopolized the Pentagon Papers. Instead, he leaked them to well
over a dozen different newspapers and media outlets such as the New
York Times and Washington Post, and to a handful of sitting senators —
one of whom, Mike Gravel, read over 4,000 of the 7,000 pages into the
Congressional record before collapsing from exhaustion. The Papers
were published in book form by a small nonprofit run by the Unitarian
Church, Beacon House Press.

Chelsea Manning, responsible for the largest mass leaks of government
secrets ever, leaked everything to WikiLeaks, a nonprofit venture that
has largely struggled to make ends meet in its seven years of
existence. Julian Assange, for all of his flaws, cannot be accused of
crudely enriching himself from his privileged access to Manning’s
leaks; instead, he shared his entire trove with a number of
established media outlets including the Guardian, New York Times, Le
Monde and El Pais. Today, Chelsea Manning is serving a 35-year
sentence in a military prison, while the Private Manning Support
Network constantly struggles to raise funds from donations; Assange
has spent the last year and a half inside Ecuador’s embassy in London,
also struggling to raise funds to run the WikiLeaks operation.

A similar story emerges in the biggest private sector analogy — the
tobacco industry leaks by whistleblowers Merrell Williams and Jeffrey
Wigand. After suffering lawsuits, harassment and attempts to destroy
their livelihoods, both eventually won awards as part of the massive
multibillion dollar settlements — but the millions of confidential
tobacco documents now belong to the public, maintained by a nonprofit,
the American Legacy Project, whose purpose is to help scholars and
reporters and scientists fight tobacco propaganda and power. Every
year, over 400,000 Americans die from tobacco-related illnesses.

The point is this: In the most successful whistleblower cases, the
public has sided with the selfless whistleblower against the power- or
profit-driven entity whose secrets were leaked. The Snowden case
represents a new twist to the heroic whistleblower story arc: After
successfully convincing a large part of the public and the American
Establishment that Snowden’s leaks serve a higher public interest,
Greenwald promptly sold those secrets to a billionaire.

He justified this purely on grounds of self-interest, calling
Omidyar’s offer “a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity.”
Speaking to the Washington Post, Greenwald used crude careerist
terminology to justify his decision to privatize the Snowden secrets:

“It would be impossible for any journalist, let alone me, to decline
this opportunity.”

Let alone me.

News about Greenwald-Poitras’ decision to privatize the NSA cache came
just days after the New York Times reported on Greenwald’s
negotiations with major movie studios to sell a Snowden film. This
past summer, Greenwald sold a book to Metropolitan Books for a
reportedly hefty sum, promising that some of the most sensational
revelations from Snowden’s leaks would be saved for the book.

Indeed what makes the NSA secrets so valuable to Greenwald and Poitras
is that the two of them have exclusive access to the entire cache.
Essentially they have a monopoly over secrets that belong to the
public. For a time, it was assumed that Snowden had kept copies of the
leaked documents, possibly on a number of laptops he was carting
around the world. Greenwald and Poitras were simply conduits between
Snowden’s cache and the public. In late August, Greenwald disclosed
for the first time in a statement to BuzzFeed:

“Only Laura and I have access to the full set of documents which
Snowden provided to journalists.”

Later, from his hideout in Russia, Snowden released a statement
claiming he had left all the NSA files behind in Hong Kong for
Greenwald and Poitras to take. A third Guardian journalist in Hong
Kong at the time, Ewen MacAskill, confirmed to me on Twitter that only
Greenwald and Poitras took with them the full cache. Even the Guardian
was not allowed access to the motherlode.

Clearly, in a story as sensational and global and alluring as
Snowden’s Secrets™, exclusive access equals value. And for the first
time in whistleblower history, that value has been extracted in full
through privatization.

It is one thing for Greenwald to maintain that exclusivity — or
monopoly — while working with the Guardian, a nonprofit with
institutional experience in investigative journalism. It is quite
another for him to sell them to a guy with a history of putting
profits before public interest. As Yasha Levine and I wrote at
NSFWCORP, Omidyar invested in a third-world micro-loans company whose
savage bullying of debtors resulted in mass suicides. Rather than
acknowledge this tragedy, Omidyar Network simply deleted reference to
the company from his website when the shit hit the fan.

This — this? — is the guy we’re supposed to trust with the as-yet
unpublished NSA files? He’s the one we’re relying on to reveal any
dark secrets about the tech industry’s collusion with the NSA? Let’s
hope there’s nothing in there about eBay. Whoops! Deleted!

Since we first raised our concerns, Yasha and I have been swamped with
responses from Greenwald’s followers. The weird thing is, not all of
those responses have been negative: even Wikileaks —Wikileaks! —
responded that, “We have not [fallen out with Greenwald] but @Pierre
is seriously compromised by Paypal’s attacks on our organisation and
supporters.”

Greenwald’s leftist and anarchist fans have always had an almost
cult-like faith in his judgment, seeing him as little less than a
digital-age Noam Chomsky. But now they’re reeling from cognitive
dissonance, trying to understand why their hero would privatize the
most important secrets of our generation to a billionaire
free-marketeer like Omidyar, whose millions have, in some cases,
brought market-based misery into some of the poorest and most
desperate corners of the planet.

A Greenwald-Omidyar partnership is as hard to swallow as if Chomsky
proudly announced a new major venture with Sheldon Adelson, on grounds
that it’s a “once-in-a-career dream academic opportunity.”

WikiLeaks’ concern about Omidyar can be traced back to PayPal’s
decision in December 2010 to blockade users from sending money to
WikiLeaks. PayPal (founded by Pando investor, Peter Thiel — more on
that below) is owned by eBay, where Omidyar has served as the chairman
of the board since 2002. Before the blockade, PayPal was the principal
medium for WikiLeaks donations, according to the Washington Post.

More troubling for fans is that Greenwald has repeatedly provided
cover for Omidyar, claiming that he “had nothing to do with [the
blockade]” despite his board status. Whether or not eBay’s chairman
really was ignorant of his company’s most controversial decision in
years, there’s no denying that Omidyar is also eBay’s largest
shareholder. At nearly 10%, his stake is worth billions and is more
than twice as large as that of the next largest shareholder.

By Greenwald’s reasoning, even though Omidyar is the founder, largest
shareholder, and chairman of the body responsible for eBay/PayPal
management oversight, he had “nothing to do with” its policy towards
Wikileaks. Zero. None. He was as helpless as you, me, Batkid, or
Grumpy Cat.

Fortunately, as the single investor, founder and CEO of “NewCo”,
Omidyar’s self-professed helplessness at eBay doesn’t extend to his
new journalistic venture. With that level of autonomy, no one — not
even Glenn Greenwald, who has admitted that Omidyar’s money is
irresistibly persuasive — can tell him which secrets to publish on his
new site, and which should remain hidden forever.

We can all rest easy in our beds, then, knowing that Omidyar is in
charge of our secrets. Information of national importance, such as
which major tech companies colluded with the US government to spy on
private citizens, will be published at the discretion of the founder
and largest shareholder of one of those companies.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul (and Mark). An important footnote about
Peter Thiel and Pando, by Paul Carr

When NSFWCORP’s acquisition by Pando was announced, Greenwald raced to
Twitter to accuse us of hypocrisy because Peter Thiel (another
billionaire whose previous business dealings could fill a book, and
who sold PayPal to eBay in the first place) once invested $200,000 in
PandoDaily, through his Founders Fund.

That’s absolutely true. Founders Fund’s investment is disclosed here
on Pando’s main about page, along with the names of the other
investors who collectively invested the remaining $2.8m raised by
Pando.

The difference between us selling our company to a media outlet that
once received a minority investment from Founders Fund and Greenwald
being personally hired by Omidyar should be obvious to anyone with a
brain. But at the risk that category excludes Glenn’s most ardent
supporters, we’re happy to spell out the difference (apart from the
monetary difference of $249,800,000 between Thiel’s $200k and
Omidyar’s $250 million, of course):

Peter Thiel has no involvement with the running of Pando. Zero. He
doesn’t make hiring or firing or any other kind of decisions (nor do
any other investors), Founders Fund isn’t Pando’s only (or even
closest largest) investor and no one from Founders Fund has a board
seat, voting rights or any other input in business or editorial
policy. In other words, Thiel has less ability to dictate editorial
policy here, in fact, than the guy who cleans the coffee cups (at
least that guy has a key to the office).

Pierre Omidyar is personally hiring the journalists for his new
project, starting with Greenwald himself. He is the venture’s sole
backer. But, you know what? All of that would still be OK if Greenwald
would make a simple, unequivocal, public pledge: to cover any bad
behavior by Pierre Omidyar in the same way that he would cover someone
who wasn’t backing him with millions of dollars.

Should be a simple thing to promise, right?

Here’s our absolute, unequivocal pledge: we will cover Peter Thiel and
Pando’s other investors just as fiercely as we cover Pierre Omidyar or
anyone else. In fact, it’s likely due to proximity that we will cover
Pando’s investors even more fiercely. That’s how we always worked at
NSFWCORP — and it’s how we’ll work here. Our past coverage of Thiel
can be found all over the web, including here, hereand even right here
on Pando. Or see how we’ve covered NSFWCORP/Pando investors
CrunchFundand Vegas Tech Fund.

When we asked Glenn to make that same pledge about his single
investor, in light of our coverage of Omidyar, he responded simply: “I
can’t speak for Omidyar Network,” adding he had “no idea” about
Omidyar’s involvement in micro loans.

From dan at geer.org  Fri Nov 29 16:35:50 2013
From: dan at geer.org (dan at geer.org)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 19:35:50 -0500
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 29 Nov 2013 12:23:44 CST."

Message-ID: <20131130003550.B2D4622809E@palinka.tinho.net>

 > (sidenote: what if a future "electronic monetary system" that relied on
 > community taxation would have a voting option, such that 50% of taxes go
 > towards a general system of operation, and the other 50%, say based on
 > income, can be steered into categories of funding (e.g. crime prevention).
 > such that localities or demographics could focus their tax contribution
 > towards the issues of most relevance. 

Pacifists have long yearned to pay no war taxes and
might perhaps speak up now, if they are present here.

--dan

From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Fri Nov 29 18:58:21 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 20:58:21 -0600
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
 <20131130003550.B2D4622809E@palinka.tinho.net>

Message-ID: 

On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 7:55 PM, Bill St. Clair wrote:

> I'd like 50% of MY taxes to be paid to me. And 50% of the remaining half, etc.

yeah. the problem with calculation as reasoning is if the equations
are not accurate or correct the 'answers' obtained via processing can
be too easy or simple for the actual situation involved.

this is the problem of language itself, seemingly, absence of
connection with logic, accountability for actual versus perceived
truth, shared and unshared observations, competing relativism in the
literal, whereby local calculation-like determinist viewpoints compete
without all variables taken into account to get "answers".
societal-wide, civilizational pandemic.

for instance, assuming *taxes* are a yearly issue taken out of payroll
only, and not a national debt burden (is this $500,000 per citizen,
when will everyone be a millionaire in reverse, via debt owed?)

the economy is not sane in terms of "economics" and yet taxes are
viewed locally as if a pure action that indebted to the absolute
fucked-up-ness of things, then used against individuals who pay less
or whatever, to justify a certain viewpoint when its not this simple,
yet entire groups view it this way as an ideology which is
self-beneficial to share values or functioning.

instead, it is normal for the tax pious to take vengeance against
others immoral for not carrying their own weight, when the entire
system is leveraging a certain class against others, forcing lives
into ruin, to sustain the given economy, then moralizing on top of
this as a conceit, of superior virtue, for those fictionally
supporting others in conditions and circumstances of privilege if not
duplicity and criminality, social darwinism survival-of-the-fittest
the masturbatory fantasia of those fat-brained and ill-conceived,
nannied by television sets, sporting events, and retirement pension
plans, for their better-than-thou thinking, not noticing their boots
on the necks of many below, living off their structural misery, last
of a generation of assholes able to do this unless extending this
fiction into the present, those able to have sustainable living
temporarily within a completely corrupt and bankrupt system and
society, and acting as if this is normal, on the level, and not based
entirely on bullshit and lies.

it is to assume the monetary system and taxes are something pure, as
if the gold standard today is not based in SHIT itself, junk economy
and throwaway culture and planned obsolescence, ripping people off
normalized, and then complaining because people need money for shelter
and food to just keep breathing, versus someone having five television
sets and three cars and two homes or just alot of stuff while others
cannot even get past a state of continual debt and are forced out of
the economy for the good of these bastard others who then look down on
those they are standing on, spitting at, and viewing as a lower form
of life- because money.

really, people actually think the monetary system and tax system is
going to be altered via a change in policy and a new system enacted,
and that is how a new way of taxes will be transitioned. that this
current fiction is going to peacibly be transformed into something
else, everyone holding hands singing kumbaya around a campfire, -or-
will it include the beginning of armageddon, separation of peoples
into those who are friends and enemies, and then within the
friendly-set, making these changes while 9/10th of the population is
liquidated via war, for starters. what if the more realistic
tax-improvement scenario.

what the more accurate scenario, modifying the existing system or
starting over, when taking everything that needs to be taken into
account into account to actually be able to deal with the involved
issues. it seems this very language prevents that modeling from
occurring, it is to be trapped within a realm of words divisible,
perspective unto perspective, never able to integrate all views into a
single correct viewpoint, removed of error, and thus every warp and
skew exchanged as normal and legitimate when it is not a default
condition, absolute correspondence between belief and conveyance and
yet this communication medium makes it appear so as an illusion, as if
saying (signs) is truth itself versus its being referenced from this
condition. and the truth of taxation is far more than a dollar number
or how it is allocated individual to individual, yet this is
commonplace and typical of its politics, as if people can vet out
"justice" via monetary-based ideology as a value and moral system,
'truth itself', objective (A=A) because it is number-based, and yet it
is monopoly money, game money, a fiction at the level of its purpose
and the concept of economy itself. at the very least is incredibly
dirty money, filthy, and thus to rationalize a moral superiority based
upon it as a perspective, which many do as if highest truth, is a
realm of the base for those who believe this, and only this, as their
value system.

it really captures the situation perfectly also in terms of the state
subsidizing itself, basically it is at the point where the state is
taxing itself, which is totally insane. people on welfare are being
blamed for being so poor as to not have enough to pay taxes, and
looked at as cheaters alone. taxing welfare that is not even enough
for subsistence in the existing quasi ~political-economy. such issues
are detached from a larger, more grounded reality that involves
structural issues relied upon for bullshit viewpoints and too-simple
frameworks, using inaccurate ideas as if a cudgel to attack others in
these situations. in this way, ignorance is a way for 'might makes
right' when a large group believes this ideology and then acts against
others, as if a moral police, yet at its core it serves first and
foremost a state of shit.

rationalization and extension of bad ideas and inaccurate thinking,
like the economy itself, allowed to inflate and granted power. it is a
bubble alright. including the fat in peoples heads bubbling over as if
insight when making and repeating idiotic calculations born of
ideology, mantra, dogma of oppressors.

they cannot be reasoned with either. which is perhaps why weapons were
invented. hell, the state itself is being run by these same people
today. all they care about is money, minus the truth it was to
represent as shared value, now devoid within currency, the basis for
the extortative ripoff via currency, the expropriation of work (via
labor transmuted into currency) then siphoned and hoarded via onesided
exchange, where most value flows uphill and is stored or used for
corporate citizens in their corporate democracy (yes, democracy
exists, just for corporate citizens not humans who are basically
slaves). the very use of money is an unequal exchange, it is A=B
exchange, it is not a shared truth that is being transferred, it is an
institutionalized ripoff that has become standardized, normalized, yet
made beyond contestation due to enforced illiteracy, the TAXATION
moralizers the holier-than-thou choir, though fundamentally,
foundationally basing these views in utter and absolute bullshit of
the state.

From electromagnetize at gmail.com  Fri Nov 29 19:46:42 2013
From: electromagnetize at gmail.com (brian carroll)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 21:46:42 -0600
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
 <20131130003550.B2D4622809E@palinka.tinho.net>

Message-ID: 

also gotta say:

i think the surveillance system has created the unique conditions
necessary for a grand-inquisitor like interrogation of each and every
view and belief, from any and every angle, eventually.

beyond just panoptics of a prisoner, if this technical omniscient
observation provides a form of accounting, assessing and checking the
truth of a given statement against known truth versus known falsity,
perhaps a potential liminal condition (if purgatory) for willful
error-correction or else, then it may create the perhaps unbelievable
scenario whereby people can no longer get away within lying.

that is, making the world impossible for liars to exist within, in
their beliefs and actions, within most biological (versus programmed)
behaviors that may involve tells or indications of falsity &
deception.

think of how that could benefit humanity, if liars could not be
allowed to continue lying via loopholes and must account for the
situation in terms of actual truth as combined from all viewpoints
total. that this is the place of citizenry, not held outside of it,
denied this condition of shared truth in which to exist.

every last idiot view and false beliefs could be taken down in their
hierarchical 'superior' positions, held to account and checked against
larger truth than just whatever is narrowed as finite justification.
in that truth would have to be accounted for, in the equations and
people capable of dealing with it, not denying it and gaming the
system for self-benefit via corruption and continual rigging of the
game which is not a game for those dying and suffering in misery due
to such malice and mendacity.

how many times has the wall that is encountered, the barrier, involve
the power of ignorance and use of denial of truth to enforce limits,
to devolve relations and interactions. what if surveillance has a
positive attribute in terms of accountability beyond just witness,
also as analyst. someone tends to move through the world via lies and
exploitation of others around them, and fights against those who seek
accountability and use of reason to mediate issues, who then become
enemies, and actions taken against these people accounted for
systematically, judiciously, yet never accounted for in a context of
greater truth of situations. peoples lives destroyed so others may
rise, truth lost in the process. what if all of it was captured via
surveillance. what if a person was held to account for their
observance and service to truth, versus exploitation of this, say to
gain power, prestige, money, by subverting truth.

it seems like every last word and utterance, phone, articles, emails,
chats, would allow such analysis especially of known false views and
beliefs and ideologies. maybe just the daydreams of executioners.
though it would be interesting if there is a running naughty and nice
list that grounds differently than 'the many' perceive it will, once
the bubble pops and the scenario is reversed, the nightmare begins...

(meaning, if the state is full of traitors, hostile to and subverting
constitutional governance, that would be an issue necessary to deal
with world-over, to allow for a correction, to get humanity back on
track)

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Fri Nov 29 22:28:44 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 22:28:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take
 on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

 <1385578162.80373.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: <1385792924.64602.YahooMailNeo@web141202.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Presumably, relatively few people have read the paper.  I am embarrassed to say that I only started paying close attention to bitcoin 2 months ago.    And I still don't own any.
      Jim Bell

________________________________
 From: Lodewijk andré de la porte 
To: Jim Bell  
Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" ; "tedks at riseup.net"  
Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2013 11:36 AM
Subject: Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

2013/11/27 Jim Bell 

This difference is not defined by a law of nature, it is defined by algorithm and software.  And I strongly doubt that many people (other than Satoshi) realized this in 2009.
I realized it shortly after reading the paper. Then checked the realization for a few days before switching the denomination of my savings. 2011
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From l at odewijk.nl  Fri Nov 29 15:36:03 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 00:36:03 +0100
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <529918B3.4040205@loom.cc>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

 <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>

 <5298C4E1.9050702@loom.cc>

 <529918B3.4040205@loom.cc>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/29 Patrick Chkoreff 

> Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote, On 11/29/2013 10:38 AM:
>
> >     That doesn't matter.  All that matters is that the benefit of solving
> >     the crime exceeds the cost of solving it.
>
> > I think we disagree here. Game theory doesn't support this standpoint.
>
> Chuck game theory.  I'm not talking about an intricate prisoner's
> dilemma with layers of feedback here, just a simple matter of benefit
> versus cost.
>

This deserves further explanation. I do think game theory is extremely
present in all of our society. We'd be more happy to have other pay tax and
not us, than to also pay taxes ourselves.

> > ... it's good for society if everyone just pays their taxes ...
>
> I disagree, but it's irrelevant anyway.  I'm not talking about big chewy
> abstractions like "society", just individual interest.
>

Arguing against "taxes" in the broad sense of the word (contribution to
society as a whole, government is less often the right word) is very
challenging indeed if you ask me. Some things only work when everyone
pitches in. Reducing climate destruction will not be possible without
universally agreed upon rules or very aggressive resistance by ... pretty
much all buying power. The latter hasn't happened ever, not without a
governing organ explicitly "boycotting" something. We're entering a very
murky discussion here which I think shouldn't be required.

Let's say "do something for the good of all of *cared-for-group-name* that
will cost the individual more than the individual will profit from it".
Becoming vegetarian is an example. It doesn't work if just that one person
does it, but it does cost that person something.

> >     Forget retribution.  The primary benefit of an investigation is the
>  >     insight which enables you to prevent future crimes.  That can be
> >     enormously valuable in terms of life and property.
> >
> >
> > Then why didn't you spend 10% of your wealth/income last year on
> > investigating crime prevention?
>
> Because the benefit to me did not exceed that particular cost.  I did
> however spend some amount of money and time on computer and physical
> security.  Some of the benefits of my efforts are shared by others.
>

You're right in that 10% is pretty darn high. Only Israel gets to that
number. About 5% of gov' taxes goes to defense though. With developed
countries' tax pressure at ~35% (US only ~25%) that makes 0.35 * 0.05 =
0.0175 or about 2% of your money. Only a fifth of what I asked you for.
Then you say you did *additional* things to secure yourself. Let's say 2%
is about right for a personal defense budget.

Knowing that committing a murder is cheaper than preventing one, by a
factor I'm not aware of, and that murder can sometimes have an economic
advantage you will find that murder will exist. (see also estimated victims
and cost of prevention of terrorism. Now see the costs of hitmen (find a
cheap one).)

Having a public market for hitmen will make it cheaper. Having a
crowdfunding posibility will enable a new *class* of people, those with
lesser profit from it, to still contribute to a kill. This model doesn't
show failures and thus misguides hitmen into thinking it is easy money,
distorting the market in the unpreferred direction. Observe how "no
retribution" significantly reduces the estimated cost of a murdering
someone.

I simply think you wouldn't get the type of civilization where you could
focus on development of the race as a whole. A way to live more than just
for your own little life, but for that of your family and "comrades".

If you don't do that you choose the most painful way to die; to live.

> > I truly think a community cannot be expected to behave in a way good for
> > the community but bad for the individual.
>
> Thank goodness.  I can't imagine what such a horror could even mean in
> the first place.
>

For real, right? Frikkin' goody two shoeses. Can't understand their
insanity.

> >     The advantage is the same when your problems are the same, which is
> >     often the case.
> >
> > I don't quite see this argument. A murderer and a police officer have
> > opposing motives. A person in the street will back away from both to
> > prevent getting hurt, even if he might help either achieve his/her goal.
>
> It is generally wise for that person to back away, though in specific
> instances people do find it mutually advantageous to look out for each
> other.  As a small example, people in my neighborhood have alerted each
> other to the presence of suspicious characters.
>
People in your neighborhood have a (perhaps unspoken) currency of
reputation. Their warning to others would be reciprocated. That idea makes
them do it. You don't have to consider this rational or good for the
individual, evolution made sure that it increases the size of the
population. This is not personally advantageous, it's popularly
advantageous. Evolution made you a less rational being to cause your
existence. Very philosophical standpoint. "Humans aren't rational,
therefore they can exist". Anyway.

There might very well be examples of true mutually beneficial cases. For
example if a wallet's finder may keep a percentage of the wallet's
contents. The finder has this dilemma:

Max( wallet.content * captureRiskFactor, wallet.content * rewardFactor +
emotionalBonus)
If the wallet's finder is found out (the owner found him) he will lose the
reward. The risk factor is 0 to 1. 10% chance of getting caught makes
content * 0.1. This is the expected profit. Everyone on this list really
should know about expected returns and all. Only when the rewardFactor is
bigger than his riskfactor will he give the wallet back. You'll find that
even this is not actually mutually beneficial, lets the wallet has
different values for both people. This is generally true, maybe a family
picture, ID's that have to be rerequested at a cost, etc. While the cash is
all that's good to the finder.

The emotional bonus is the thing that causes people to be vegetarian and is
also the typical reason people obey the law. It's part of the unlikely
risk-adverseness common in people nowadays. I guess safely living worse is
better than maybe living better in terms of survival.

Anyway again. Given such proper gametheory you'll find it hard to find
situations where one would be interested in protecting another unrelated
human being.

At some point crime will stabilize at a certain level. That level is where
people are so generally scared of a crime against them, yet not scared of
retribution for their protests against crime, that they'll put efforts (in
financial or other form) into reducing the level of criminality.

You'll find their first move is closing assassination markets to increase
the effective cost and risk of finding a murderer to do one's bidding. It's
by far the cheapest way to reduce murder.

> It amazes me that some glibly assert that people will voluntarily fund
> the assassination of a politician, but would not voluntarily fund the
> investigation of a string of crimes which cost money and lives. --
> especially given that "crowdfunding" is all the rage these days.  The
> view strikes me as excessively dismal and eeyorish.
>

Once there's a string of crimes you'd rather barricade your home than
collectively hire a detective. Maybe you'll have a guard on your street.
But you wouldn't donate to a crime lab doing experimental research. That's
just too little directly visible return. Ad-hoc patchwork solutions.
(Paying safety money for example)

An assassination pool however has very direct and clear payoffs if it ever
happens. Easy to put money towards out of a simple grudge.

Excuses for the subpar use of language. My End Of Day has been reached.

Could you try to summarize the arguments we've been throwing at each other?
I'd like to reach some sort of satisfying answer.

I think you estimate the cost of protection to be comparable to the cost of
attacks. I think protection is far more expensive and although likely a
more popular expense (let's say people are generally good, witchhunts and
discrimination would suggest otherwise but w/e) also more frequently a
smaller expense, as the profit derived from it is very hard to determine
and the profit would hardly alter by a personal contribution. Therewith
creating a game theory scenario (a simple one!) where general safety will
dwindle as to alter our society significantly and make crime an auctioned
commodity. Subverting any way of life not strictly egoistical. (What was
the last time you donated to your police station?)

As you see my summary turned into another piece of argument. Excuses
excuses.

Eeyorish is a nice word btw. And after a string of crimes is a tad late.
And who'd notice it's a string of crimes?
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From juan.g71 at gmail.com  Fri Nov 29 19:55:29 2013
From: juan.g71 at gmail.com (Juan Garofalo)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 00:55:29 -0300
Subject: Omidyar influence in new Greenwald venture [was: SRF: cryptic]
In-Reply-To: 
References: 

Message-ID: <1745A0ABC8952D2815410B69@F74D39FA044AA309EAEA14B9>

--On Friday, November 29, 2013 7:26 PM -0800 coderman 
wrote:

> see also:
> "Keeping Secrets: Pierre Omidyar, Glenn Greenwald and the
> privatization of Snowden's leaks"
> http://pando.com/2013/11/27/keeping-secrets/

	"Snowden doesn't have the files any more,"

	HA ?!?

>  - BY MARK AMES, NOVEMBER 27, 2013
> 
> ---
> 
> Who "owns" the NSA secrets leaked by Edward Snowden to reporters Glenn
> Greenwald and Laura Poitras?
> 
> Given that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar just invested a quarter of a
> billion dollars to
> personally hire Greenwald and Poitras for his new for-profit media
> venture, it's a question worth asking.
> 

From jamesd at echeque.com  Fri Nov 29 08:00:40 2013
From: jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 02:00:40 +1000
Subject: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <52944555.4090303@echeque.com>

 <1385452191.8804.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1385452282.89331.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <52947A21.1040608@witmond.nl> <5294E245.2030708@echeque.com>
 <20131127182457.29A14E5F8@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>

Message-ID: <5298BA28.4010300@echeque.com>

On 2013-11-30 01:19, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
> 2013/11/28 Martin Becze >
>
>     fuck politicians, we will 'vote' on that protocols that we want to
>     run in our society by mining.
>
>
> Why not just submit to the wealthy without this noisy waste of electricity?

Capitalism works very well, crony capitalism sucks.

The finance sector of the economy has grown to alarming size on 
government favor.  Bitcoin, or its succesors, may well do something 
about this.

From l at odewijk.nl  Fri Nov 29 17:07:23 2013
From: l at odewijk.nl (=?UTF-8?Q?Lodewijk_andr=C3=A9_de_la_porte?=)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 02:07:23 +0100
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: <20131130003550.B2D4622809E@palinka.tinho.net>
References: 
 <20131130003550.B2D4622809E@palinka.tinho.net>
Message-ID: 

2013/11/30 

> Pacifists have long yearned to pay no war taxes and
> might perhaps speak up now, if they are present here.

I thought of this too. But I think there's more to "say where 50% of your
taxes go to" than just a pacifistic message.
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From seanl at literati.org  Sat Nov 30 09:34:07 2013
From: seanl at literati.org (Sean Lynch)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 09:34:07 -0800
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
 (David Vorick's message of "Thu, 28 Nov 2013 03:17:02 -0500")
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

Message-ID: <874n6tlrow.fsf@michiru.Home>

On Thu, Nov 28 2013, David Vorick wrote:

> I hadn't though about it this way until now, but having the ability
> to achieve full anonymity on the internet enables things like this,
> and assassination markets might not be the first or most viscous
> thing enabled by anonymity.

> I can imagine that if assassination markets were to take off, you'd
> see some large bounties (in excess of $100k) on every major
> politician in the world. Pretty much any figure of high popularity
> would probably have some sort of assassination bounty on their head,
> because the more popular you are, the more haters you have.

> What other sorts of unacceptable things could you do given fully
> anonymous money coupled with a fully anonymous internet identity? I
> can think of:

> website takedowns
> funding murder, rape, arson, etc.
> bombing certain buildings
> funding smear campaigns (say, tear the clothes off a popular
> celebrity or something)
> bounties for drugs, child porn, etc.
> kidnappings
> doxing

> You could basically attempt to crowd fund any illegal activity.

This doesn't particularly concern me, because a) you have to get enough
people (or people with enough money) who are willing to fund murder to
actually fund it, and b) someone has to actually do the act. Making a
liquid market for murder means you can overcome the risk only for high
profile targets with a lot of enemies. That means primarily politicians,
asshole celebrities, CEOs of widely hated companies, etc. And on the
other side, you can also crowdsource defense, as has already been
happening with the various legal defense funds.

I fear the interventions governments are likely to engage in far more
than I fear the new markets.

-- 
Sean Richard Lynch 
http://www.literati.org/~seanl/
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From seanl at literati.org  Sat Nov 30 10:47:02 2013
From: seanl at literati.org (Sean Lynch)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 10:47:02 -0800
Subject: ntru-crypto - Open Source NTRU Public Key Cryptography Algorithm
 and Reference Code
In-Reply-To: 
 (coderman@gmail.com's message of "Wed, 27 Nov 2013 13:13:29 -0800")
References: 
Message-ID: <87vbz9k9qx.fsf@michiru.Home>

On Wed, Nov 27 2013, coderman wrote:

> https://github.com/NTRUOpenSourceProject/ntru-crypto

> """
> Security Innovation, Inc., the owner of the NTRU public key
> cryptography system, made the intellectual property and a sample
> implementation available under the Gnu Public License (GPL) in 2013
> with the goal of enabling more widespread adoption of this superior
> cryptographic technology. The system is also available for commercial
> use under the terms of the Security Innovation Commercial License.

Haven't we made the mistake of relying on someone else's IP for crypto
before? I'm looking at you, RSA and IDEA. I have no interest in a
cryptosystem that's owned by someone and that requires me to release my
own software under a particular license to use it. I don't care how
technologically superior it might be.

-- 
Sean Richard Lynch 
http://www.literati.org/~seanl/
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From danstaples at disman.tl  Sat Nov 30 10:18:04 2013
From: danstaples at disman.tl (Dan Staples)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 13:18:04 -0500
Subject: DEF CON 19 - hackers get hacked!
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
 <5296DF59.1000108@cryptolab.net> <4213594.2z5ZyUsfhT@lap>

Message-ID: <529A2BDC.1050605@disman.tl>

I would be interested to see the details of the exploits you
witnessed/were subject to (especially since I was at DC20). How exactly
did you determine how the exploits occurred, and who was responsible for
them? How are you certain the DC19 attacks utilized DRT tech?

On 11/29/2013 09:42 PM, coderman wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, coderman  wrote:
>> ...
>> - 24/Jul/2012 ... DEF CON 20
> 
> clarification:
> DC20 was not DRT equipment; they were "in the towers" for DC20, and
> focused primarily on baseband attacks. over 14 different tower
> facilities linked to active attacks covering miles around the Rio.
> 

-- 
http://disman.tl
OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9

From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Sat Nov 30 13:49:48 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 13:49:48 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Youtube item on "Assassination market"
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385247247.76471.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Message-ID: <1385848188.71088.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

________________________________
 From: "author at anonymousbitcoinbook.com" 

On 2013-11-23 18:54, Jim Bell wrote:
> I found this on Youtube.com. 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbGypiDik2E [1]
> (Disclaimer: I am not associated with 'Sanjuro's "Assassination
> Market" in any way. I do not know who he is.)
>  Jim Bell 
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http:///

>1) Ew, if it's real. Nothing good can come from that.

I am about the last person in the world who would agree with that statement!

>2) Probably not real, but just a honeypot.

I suspect it's not a _government_ honeypot.  I haven't been promoting AP in the last 1.75 years.  (Since I left that "gated community", FCI Sheridan, Oregon.)  It's hard for me to imagine why a government (primary example, the U.S. Federal Government) would want to give publicity to my AP idea, when I was not doing so myself.  Moreover, 'Sanjuro' (the pseudonymous operator of AM) has included a statement that the fund would pay off also if the target dies by ordinary, innocent, and natural means.  (Rather than paying only on a deliberate killing.)  If this is truly a honeypot, then presumably the purpose would be to catch donors/predictors to the system.  Adding that rule, that all predicted deaths would lead to a payment, would make it very difficult to assign legal liability to any such donor.  It would look too much like simple gambling, or for that matter life insurance of an odd sort.  (I anticipated precisely this tactic in 1995-96.)

>Interesting find, in any case.
>-Kristov

As simple as doing Google "Assassination Market".
           Jim Bell
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From jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com  Sat Nov 30 14:02:40 2013
From: jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com (Jim Bell)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 14:02:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market
In-Reply-To: 
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <87zjosrlnq.fsf@literati.org>

 <52975E55.4000805@loom.cc>

Message-ID: <1385848960.7557.YahooMailNeo@web141204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

From: Lodewijk andré de la porte 

To: Patrick Chkoreff  
Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org"  
Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2013 8:37 AM
Subject: Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market

2013/11/28 Patrick Chkoreff 

You could also crowd fund an investigation of the abhorrent activities
>listed above, finding the people who do such things and stopping them
>with gentle persuasion.
>
>That's good, because decent people outnumber sociopaths by a very large
>margin.
>Solving crime is also very much more expensive than causing it. And the advantage to solving another person's problem is smaller than
> solving your own.
But preventing 'crime' in the first place can be extremely economical.  In America, at least 75% of people in prison are there, directly or indirectly, due to such illegal drugs. (Much more if you include stealing property and general robbery to get enough money to buy those overpriced illegal drugs.)  Remove all such laws against those drugs, and easily 90% of such prisoners can go home immediately, without any fear that they will continue in their prior criminal path.  Now, many people would object that removing laws against those illegal drugs is extremely difficult.  (Only now is marijuana being legalized in a few states, and even there the Feds still insist on calling it illegal.)  But that was, in no small part, why I invented my AP idea.  There are relatively few legislators (at the Federal and State levels) in America.  Get their not-so-voluntary "cooperation" and those drug laws won't last very long.
       Jim Bell
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From mike at gogulski.com  Sat Nov 30 07:55:10 2013
From: mike at gogulski.com (Mike Gogulski)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 16:55:10 +0100
Subject: Jim Bell needs Bitcoins!
In-Reply-To: <1385792924.64602.YahooMailNeo@web141202.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1385370567.90180.YahooMailNeo@web141206.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <5293740D.4030506@kjro.se>
 <1385417238.14632.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385421475.40988.YahooMailNeo@web141201.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <20131126003204.GK7523@hexapodia.org>

 <20131126225653.F25A9F5F0@a-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com>
 <1385511819.20893.6.camel@anglachel>

 <1385514403.20893.10.camel@anglachel>

 <1385578162.80373.YahooMailNeo@web141205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

 <1385792924.64602.YahooMailNeo@web141202.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <529A0A5E.2080106@gogulski.com>

Jim, install a wallet and send me an address. I'll send you some coin :)

On 11/30/2013 07:28 AM, Jim Bell wrote:
> Presumably, relatively few people have read the paper.  I am
> embarrassed to say that I only started paying close attention to
> bitcoin 2 months ago.    And I still don't own any.
>       Jim Bell
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Lodewijk andré de la porte 
> *To:* Jim Bell 
> *Cc:* "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" ;
> "tedks at riseup.net" 
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 27, 2013 11:36 AM
> *Subject:* Re: bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re:
> Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
>
> 2013/11/27 Jim Bell >
>
>     This difference is not defined by a law of nature, it is defined
>     by algorithm and software.  And I strongly doubt that many people
>     (other than Satoshi) realized this in 2009.
>
>
> I realized it shortly after reading the paper. Then checked the
> realization for a few days before switching the denomination of my
> savings. 2011
>
>

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