Re: This is why a free society is evil. [Re: This is why HTMLemail is evil.]
At 9:40 AM -0500 12/15/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Tim May wrote: >> >> In a free society, free economy, then employers and employees are >> much more flexible. A solid contributor would not be fired for >> something so trivial as having a porn picture embedded in some minor >> way. Hell, a solid contributor probably wouldn't be fired even for >> sending MPEG porn movies to his buddies! >> > >Depends on your definition of a free society, free economy. In my definition, > free society, free economy property holders are free to use the power derived >from their property in order to protect their property and also to advance >their own agenda. > >I don't know if your example involved a claim the Personnel Dept. bimbo >was acting as an agent of the company's property holders or not, but that's >just the advancing agenda situation. The reason the company now prohibits all sorts of activities, and the reason the Personnel Commissar is inspecting offices, is because of _externalities_ like lawsuits, harassment charges, etc. In a free society, these externalities would vanish. >I suspect you'd be happier if property >holders didn't hire people prone to making decisions advancing their own >individual agendas. Unfortunately, it's hard to find perfect people and >it's still the decision of the property holder to hire them and allow them >to make decisions without supervision. You seem to fundammentally misunderstand the situation. The reason the Personnel Commissar is ordering sensitivity training, workshops, and is requiring that posters of Brittny Spears be removed from office walls is because government and lawyers have made companies liable in various ways for "discriminatory" or "sexist" or suchlike behaviors. One of my fellow engineers at Intel had a large poster of the famous early 80s porn star, "Seka," on his walls--she was, in this poster, clothed, albeit skimpily. Some of the secretaries clucked, and retaliated by putting up Chippendales calendars, including full frontal nudity. Would such things be tolerated today? Nope. And not because of the personal choices of a particluarl Personnel bimbo. Nope, the fear is of lawsuits. This was my point about a free society. > >Even so, a property holder is equally free to protect their property by >deciding that firing an individual accused of an action is less of a cost >than the legal actions and/or bad press that might otherwise result. Firing >actions don't have to be rational and property owners are free to be gutless. You're really missing the point, aren't you? Go back and think about the issues more deeply. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED]Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: 1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Re: Perry's Paint Fable comes to mind...
At 11:13 PM -0800 12/14/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >At 10:23 PM -0800 on 12/14/00, Tim May wrote: > > >> April 1st is many months off, so why this? > >:-). > >Let's see now, you're about the third or fourth person to note the same >think (Stewart, Broiles, for example), on this very thread. The first >being, of course, Perry... > >Yes, I'd heard about the flaps and seals folks. Yes, probably seven or >eight times. From you, alone, over the years. Sorry I didn't see the other responses, who pointed out the same things I pointed out, basically. I was away for a couple of days and was catching up on a lot of mail. I'm just amazed that "New Scientist" or anyone else would not know that making paper transparent is trivial. I may take their "What if atoms don't actually exist?" sorts of cover stories (quantum weirdness, stuff from nothingness, etc.) less seriously. > >(In the meantime, are you *sure* you really want to start this kind of >snide shit again, Tim? It seems to me you and I were doing rather nicely >the last 9 or 10 months or so...) It wasn't "snide shit." Reread what I wrote. But, since you are apparently so willing to be offended, and have more than several times brought up some notion that we have some sort of truce, let me disabuse you of this by saying "Fuck off." --Tim May -- Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED]Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: 1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Re: Perry's Paint Fable comes to mind...
At 3:50 AM -0800 12/14/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >At 11:35 PM -0600 on 12/13/00, by way of [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >> FOR ALL TO SEE >> It's a spray which renders sealed envelopes transparent, making the >> letters inside as easy to read as postcards. "It leaves an odour for 10 >> to 15 minutes," says the spray's inventor, but, apart from that, "no >> evidence at all" that it's been used. While the manufacturer describes >> "See-Through" as a "non-conductive, non-toxic, environmentally safe >> liquid", human rights activists believe "it's an ethically questionable >> product" which could tempt security forces to bend laws. > > http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns226930 April 1st is many months off, so why this? Tools for making envelopes transparent have been in use for many decades, perhaps a century or more. Bamford and Kahn, IIRC, discuss varius government agencies during WWII and later steaming envelopes--the so-called "Flaps and Seals" folks. They may have alluded to freon sprays and all the newer methods, but it was pretty clear that Flaps and Seals was not limited to just "steaming." I saw sprays used for making envelopes transparent sold in novelty stores and catalogs back in the 70s. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED]Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: 1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Digital Economy Jargon Generator
With all of the talk recently of recursively-settled agoric market spaces, multidimensional geodesic actor systems, and other jargon-heavy marketbuzz, I've made up a little table of recommended names. Someone could make a little Perl or Python script to let the computers do all the work. The idea is to take a couple of sexy terms from Columns 1 and 2 and apply them to a noun from Column 3. Care should be taken to use terms which evoke images from relativity, quantum mechanics, artificial life, and other trendy areas. Anything that triggers images from "Star Trek" is good. Here it goes: Column 1Column 2 Column 3 Distributed Fractal Market GeodesicCoaseian Ecosystem Holographic Geodesic Space Multiply-connected Biometric Ecology Least ActionParameterized Continuum Recursively-settled Holographic Cyberspace Fractal Multidimensional Bazaar BionomicDistributed Hyperspace Agoric Auction Topology Best of breed MetricMetaverse Dark Fiber Anarchic Arena Open-system Quantized Manifold Anarcho-topological Hayekian Actor system Examples of usage: "Digital Datawhack is premised on the principle of creating distributed biometric agoric arenas." "The Von Mises Corporation is the dominant player in deploying recursively-settled holographic actor systems. It is our goal to make agoric, open-system market topologies the bionomic norm." "Fractalbucks are the unit of currency in the Hayekworld bazaar-type open Coaseian system. We believe it to be best of breed in the dark fiber geodesic market space." Glad to be of help. --Tim May, Aptical Foddering Marketspace V.P. -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Questions of size...
At 5:56 PM -0500 12/11/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >At 9:48 PM + on 12/11/00, Ben Laurie wrote: > > >> Chambers defines geodesic as "the shortest line on a surface between two >> points on it" > >Thank you. It works in all dimensions, and, thus it's topological, right? > Topology is typically not concerned with distance metrics. Doughnuts and coffee cups and all. Geometry is what you're thinking of, presumably. Not as sexy as saying something is "a topologically-invariant geodesic fractally-cleared auction space," but that's what happens when buzzwords are used carelessly. By the way, one topological aspect of a geodesic dome, to go back to that, is that each node is surrounded by some number of neighbors. Applied to a "geodesic economy," this image/metaphor would strongly suggest that economic agents are trading with their neighbors, who then trade with other neighbors, and so on. Tribes deep in the Amazon, who deal only with their neighbors, are then the canonical "geodesic economy." This is precisely the _opposite_ of the mulitiply-connected trading situation which modern systems make possible. So, aside from the cuteness of suggesting a connection with geodesic domes, with buckybits as the currency perhaps?, this all creates confusion rather than clarity. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: US: Democracy or Republic?
At 1:32 AM -0500 12/11/00, Declan McCullagh wrote: >On Sun, Dec 10, 2000 at 05:12:23PM -0800, Steve Schear wrote: >> Quite. And the specter of the Florida legislature selecting a new set of >> electors are providing one of the best civics educations citizens young and >> old have had this century. Its really quite healthy to have the myth of >> democracy we were all taught in grade school laid bare by the reality of a >> conservative and plain reading of the Constitution by some of the best and >> brightest. > >Heh. For every Democrat (and perhaps some Republicans) who goes on TV >and proudly proclaims this perpetual election as a good thing because >it buttresses our civics knowledge, I want to ask: Why don't we >encourage the president, say, to commit a felony? The subsequent >prosecution and conviction would be fascinating to observe and would >*really* educate America's children. Yes, the treatment Bill received after raping Juanita Brodderick was indeed instructive. As was the punishment he received for lying under oath, suborning perjury, tampering with evidence, and (very probably) having witnesses in his scandals killed. (While not _all_ of the several dozen people on the Bill Hit List were victims of foul play, I expect many were. And about 10 standard deviations' worth of deaths as compared to the expected number around other men of similar age --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
The US mis-election - an oportunity for e-voting..
At 11:17 PM -0500 12/10/00, Robert Guerra wrote: >In article <001c01c062e0$5db95fc0$0100a8c0@golem>, "Me" ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> i dont see why any of these methods are inherently >> better/safer/more accurate than those used in florida. > >Counting a "X"'s I would think is easier than counting chads on punch >card ballots Clue 1: Hollerith cards are not intended to be read by humans. Clue 2: The first computer count, the second computer count, and in some cases, the third computer count, gave substantially identical results. Clue 3: One party, seeing it was approximately 500-1000 votes behind the other party, initiated a series of diversionary measures, including folderol about butterflies and confused Jews. The diversion lasted long enough for planeloads of New York shysters to arrive. Then the focus shifted to "the will of the people must be listened to." Clue 4: Hollerith cards in banks and corporations around the world are _still _ not read by human eyeballs. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Sunders point on copyright infringement & HTML
At 2:19 AM + 12/11/00, Anonymous wrote: >On Sun, Dec 10, 2000 at 04:46:05PM -0800, Tim May wrote: > >> >> Fact is, PGP and SMIME went the _wrong_ direction when message >> >> signings started to require RTF, MIME, HTML, etc. (I realize >> >> these >> >> are not all the same thing. The real issue is "non-ASCII.") > >Apparently, Eudora didn't manage to implement MIME properly within 7 >years. That is unfortunate, but MIME is the right direction >nevertheless. > >A MIME-compliant mail reader without PGP support would just display >the message without the signature, and possible add a note that there >was a signature that could not be verified (or that an attachment >could not be displayed). You're missing the point. Several people set their systems to provide their _entire_ messages as attachments. Riad Wahby acknowledged this, and fixed it. Others did not, so I started filtering them out. Eudora Pro handles MIME just fine. If someone provides a message as an attachment, whether of type JPEG or type MW, then clicking on that attachment icon launches a JPEG viewer or Microsoft Word or whatever. My point is that I don't see the point of expecting readers of a mailing list to open a message in MW or whatever. In-lining usually solves this problem. Signatures, if they exist, can either be verified with another program or with plug-ins to speed up the process. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Sunders point on copyright infringement & HTML
At 5:24 PM -0600 12/10/00, Allen Ethridge wrote: >On 11/30/00 at 1:46 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tim May) wrote: > >> So, you might say, "it works." Nope. Problems: >> >> 1. I ain't gonna read messages that require me to launch my word > > processor. Mail shouldn't need external word processors or text > > editors. > >Mail programs need, at the very least, text editors, or it becomes >difficult to >compose. Or do you mean that word processors should be integrated into mail >programs? Did you miss the word "external" in my sentence? Let me repeat it for you: "Mail shouldn't need external word processors or text editors." In-line vs. attachment is the issue here. Most of those who have been using the "attachment" setting have belatedly realized their errors and are now in-lining their text. > >> Fact is, PGP and SMIME went the _wrong_ direction when message >> signings started to require RTF, MIME, HTML, etc. (I realize these >> are not all the same thing. The real issue is "non-ASCII.") > >Luddite. I tried above to be polite. Now this. PLONK. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: A piece of advice??
At 6:18 PM +0200 12/10/00, FRANKY wrote: > Hello to everyone. I'm Alexis and as I'm new to cryptography I >would appreciate a piece of advice. I've read the book "Applied >Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier and I also have the "ICSA Guide >to cryptography". However I would like to know where could I find more >books related to cryptography. www.amazon.com I assume they can ship internationally. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Gates to Privacy Rescue? Riiight!
At 2:27 PM -0800 12/10/00, petro wrote: >Mr. May: > >> >>The author also mentions that consumers dislike (so?) tracking of >>their purchases...and then in the next paragraphs cites the >>Firestone tire recall as an example of better policy than most Web >>sites have (or something like this...I re-read his analogy several >>times and still wasn't sure what his claim was). But > I took that statement to mean that if Firestone exercised the >same level of diligence in the engineering of their tires that most >web sites used, they would be recalling a *LOT* more tires, enough >to make the current recall a drop in the bucket. Sure, but I was making the point that this is an ironic example, as it was the records which Firestone and Ford kept of their customers which allowed them to send recall letters out to those customers! (I just got Yet Another Letter from Ford, which I haven't opened. The last couple have exhorted me to _please_ make arrangements with a local dealer to have the Firestone tires on my Explorer replaced.) I got a similar letter from Costco, the giant box store, saying that a _rope light_ I bought at some time in the past--their letter gave the exact date--has been recalled due to the chance that it may burst into flames under certain circumstances. (When it gets wet, as the waterproofing was faulty. Inasmuch as I use these rope lights to illuminate and heat the interior of my gun safe, I ignored the letter.) There are technological solutions for how companies can notify customers without knowing what customers buy, obviously. Nyms, cut out accounts, agents which send ticklers, etc. This was not my point, only the irony of citing the Firestone recall in a discussion of how companies are tracking purchases. But since the word "irony" has been removed from all current dictionaries --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Systems
r "everything is a branch of physics," "everything is a branch of economics," etc. The worm turns. I advise folks not to concentrate on either Gilder's "telecosm" (or whatever) or Hettinga's "fractional geodesic networks" (or whatever) or even my own "crypto anarchy" (or whatever). The interesting stuff is not in the terminology. By the way, the more interesting thing about these systems is NOT that they are locally-connected, nearest neighbor, as a geodesic dome is connected, but that they are _multiply-connected, high-dimensionality_ systems. (Hint: All 270 million Americans live in an N-cube of just 5 units on each side...but with a bunch of dimensions. Geodesics are not the interesting thing. Communication, bandwidth, connectivity, auction systems, etc., are far more important. ) --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: fingerprint mouse.
At 12:30 AM -0800 12/9/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: >On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Anonymous wrote: > >>update HONG KONG--Siemens has a solution for people who constantly >>forget computer passwords: a mouse that recognizes fingerprints. >> >> >>By lightly tapping the fingertip sensor located at the top of the >>mouse, the device verifies the fingerprint against reference >>templates already input into the PC's system. Once a fingerprint is >>authenticated, the person can then access the PC's main operating >>system. > >Oh, right. And nobody could *possibly* dust it for fingerprints, >etch a fingerprint >into a rubber pad, and tap the rubber pad on the sensor. That might >take what, >a whole hour? Less, for a black bag agent. And black bag entries are becoming a standard, court-authorized measure. I wonder how long before a court-authorized measure will be simply mugging a target and cutting off his ID finger. When government adopts the MO of the thief, all things are possible. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
RE: Signatures and MIME Attachments Getting Out of Hand
At 10:14 AM -0500 12/8/00, Trei, Peter wrote: > > > <> >> > > >Sean writes: > >>ASCII plain text *is* The Way. But guess what, PGP/MIME *is* plain text. >>You can even parse it with your eyeballs. > > >Sean: Guess what: Your message comes as an attachment, which I have >to open seperately. > >Peter By the way, the same problems with MIME, HTML, attachments, etc. is hitting the Newsgroups as well. Some of the newsgroup folks are posting reminders (from charters, FAQs) not to do this. Here's one I just saw in the comp.lang.ruby group: " (a) General format guidelines: - Use *plain* text; don't use HTML, RTF, or Word. - Include examples from files as *in-line* text; don't use attachments. - PLEASE NOTE! Include quoted text from previous posts *BEFORE* your responses. And *selectively* quote as much as is relevant. " Good advice for our list as well. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Re: Re: Re: Fractal geodesic networks
At 3:57 PM -0800 12/8/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: >On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Jim Choate wrote: > >> >>Fractal simply means non-integer dimension. >> > >Yeah, that's where it started. But I'm using it more in the >sense of meaning the properties that fractal structures have; >self-similarity across scales, for one, as in the big nodes >work the same way as the little nodes and larger patterns are >emergent from the interaction of simple rules. > >>Computer networks, at least copper or fiber based, can't be fractal. > >Physically, true. There is a minimum size feature, in the sense >that some computing hardware and memory is required of every node. >In terms of the flow of information, I'm not as sure. Argg. Anyone claiming that something "can't be fractal," as Choate apparently does in the section you quote, just doesn't understand the meaning of fractal. Or, in Choateworld, "Since all physical things have three spatial dimensions, there are no non-integer dimensions, and hence fractals cannot exist." Like Choatian physics, Choatian economics, Choatian law, and Choatian history, such crankish ideas are neither useful nor interesting. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Gates to Privacy Rescue? Riiight!
[[EMAIL PROTECTED] removed from the distribution list. They claimed not to want any politics discussion, and they are a closed list, so why is political discussion going to it?] At 11:50 AM -0500 12/8/00, Adam Shostack wrote: >On Fri, Dec 08, 2000 at 09:07:38AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >| >| At 8:30 AM -0500 on 12/8/00, BNA Highlights wrote: >| >| >| > THOUGH TECHNOLOGY MIGHT HELP PRIVACY >| > A meeting of business leaders in Redmond, Washington led to >| > a frank debate over the insufficiency of North American >| > action on consumer privacy and the potential for technology >| > to play a key role in protecting such privacy. For example, >| > Bill Gates announced that the next version of IE would >| > better allow consumers to ascertain Web site privacy >| > policies. >| > http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/technology/08SECU.html > >http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20001207/tc/forrester_exec_injects_security_summit_with_harsh_truths_1.html > >REDMOND, Wash. -- Just a few hours after Bill Gates opened Microsoft >Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) SafeNet 2000 security summit here >Thursday on an optimistic note, Forrester Research Inc.'s (Nasdaq:FORR >- news) John McCarthy blew it all up. I read the article (thanks for the URL). Nothing new, and, in fact, several of the old chestnuts about why regulation is needed. The author also mentions that consumers dislike (so?) tracking of their purchases...and then in the next paragraphs cites the Firestone tire recall as an example of better policy than most Web sites have (or something like this...I re-read his analogy several times and still wasn't sure what his claim was). But the irony of juxtaposing Firestone and "customers dislike tracking" is delicious indeed! It is the existence of customer records--generally voluntarily provided by the customer--that allowed Firestone and Ford to contact hundreds of thousands of Explorer owners. I wonder if the author appreciates the irony here? All of this folderol about laws being needed to control privacy must be fought at every stage. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: nambla
At 12:09 PM -0500 12/7/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Could you e-mail with some sites I could go to and see young male >porn. Saw your e-mail at a nambla site. I have not been able to >find any young male porn sites. Would appreciate the help. Officer Matt Frewberg, We are unable to process your request at this time. We are busy here supplying Law Enforcement with the bomb-making information that their supervisor, Sen. Feinstein, has ordered them to find on the Internet. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Tim is innocent was Re: hi
At 10:27 AM + 12/7/00, Steve Mynott wrote: >On Wed, Dec 06, 2000 at 05:02:17PM -0800, Tim May wrote: > >> Rasha sounds like the typical illiterate student who has to take >> remedial English upon her arrival at Beaver College. I had a roommate >> in college who was one of these types, having to take the equivalent >> of "English for Dummies." He couldn't spell, he couldn't construct a >> sentence, and he couldn't read worth a damn. > >Although I dislike, as ever, Tim's tone in these matters he has, as he >often does, a valid point hidden under his bitterness and his >experience at an American university is similar to my own, more recent, >experiences at English universities. > >In a basic course that purported to teach "economics" (actually a >dumbed down blend of vague sociology and Keynesianism) the majority of >students were foreign and had a poor grasp of the English language. > >The level of debate was poor and the lecturer had an easy job. > >I am not racist against foreign students and think poking fun at poor >English isn't constructive (they generally speak English better than I >speak their own language) but there seems to me something basically >broken about a system which doesn't teach basic English _before_ trying >to teach complex ideas in that language. Nor am I a racist. I don't even believe the concept of "race" is a meaningful one. After all, the latest evidence from mitochondrial DNA studies is that nearly everyone in the world is descended from a group which was in Africa about 50,000 years ago. A mere blink of an eye. However, I believe people and groups of people, through their culture, vary in their approach to education. Few can dispute that Jews are very strongly represented in medicine, law, science, and professions in general...and underrepresented in sports, for example. Few can dispute the opposite about blacks, at least in America. There are well-known _cultural_ reasons for this. Without even giving the ethnic group for these statements, it is obvious which ones they belong to: "My son, the _doctor_." "Books are for whiteys." The role of culture is readily apparent at public libraries in Silicon Valley. Large numbers of Asians, men and women, usually in couples, with large numbers of Asian children hauling armloads of books. And Asian children dominate the science fairs, the engineering programs. (The Vietnamese do especially well. This was noticeable to many of us as early as 1980-83, when the Valedictorians and Salutatorians--the top students--at area high schools were largely "boat people." These BPs had "floated under the Golden Gate Bridge in rafts," as I like to say, and yet several years later they had mastered enough English to dominate their high schools. It was seeing this that finished off any sympathy I had that black and Mexican students were failing because they hadn't mastered English, blah blah blah. I realized it was culture, pressure from parents, and desire to succeed.) One could look at the success of blacks who are from the West Indies, and who tend to be academically-oriented, to see that culture is more important than race. Many blacks from the Dominican Republic, even dirt-poor Haiti, are doctors and lawyers. The issue remains culture. Perhaps a remnant of slavery, perhaps a remnant of the plantation lifetstyle. Whatever. They must change this culture. Whitey and Big Brother can't do it for them. The black family in America is fragmented, drug use is rampant, children are strongly, strongly discouraged by their peers and their mothers (the fathers are absent, in most cases) from academically excelling. A culture of "deliberate slacking," like a union shop that is on a work slowdown. Those who excel, academically, are seen as "white inside" with a variety of deprecating names applied to them. Obviously this is not true in all cases. There are black scientists and black doctors, and there are Jewish tramps and winos, Asian drug dealers. But the "distributions" basically fit what I have described. And many black intellectuals, dismissed by other blacks as Unca Toms and "race traitors," are saying the same thing with increasing concern about their culture. Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, many others. Biologically, it is just plain crazy to think that groups which only recently scattered into Europe, Japan, Australia, and other corners of the world have evolved different brain structures. They haven't. But cultures can change in the blink of an eye, in a few decades. This is what is at issue. Call me a culturalist, but not a racist. Correlation is not causation. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
RE: hi
At 7:48 PM -0500 12/6/00, Trei, Peter wrote: > > Tim May[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: >> >> At 4:02 PM -0800 12/6/00, IT IS SHOOOSH wrote: >> >Daer Reciever... >> >i am a stuend in an American University... >> >and i am taking a public speaking course... >> >i have this week to give a persuasive speech (my final >> >speech)...i thought of doing it about persuading my >> >audience that seatbelts are not safe as we >> >thought...there is a stydu done recently in England >> >that showed that... >> > >> >i dont know,,is it a good topic,,or can u give me more >> > >> >thank you >> >Rasha >> > >> >> Daer Reciever Rasha, >> >> i am happi you r a stuend. amrika needs good stuends. >> baste on yur speling, i think u shuld becum a teecher. >> >> --tim >> >Anyone else suspect that the original message (from a >throw-away yahoo account) is a troll, >and wonder if Tim might have been the author? > >[Tim, perhaps you're not, but replying so quickly in this >manner to the original message (which is a canonical >example of the way you satirize uneducated blacks) >is suspicious to say the least :-] First, this is not how I satirize uneducated--or even educated--blacks. I didn't use any ebonics code words, nor did I mention niggaz, crack hoes, or welfare entitlements. Rasha sounds like the typical illiterate student who has to take remedial English upon her arrival at Beaver College. I had a roommate in college who was one of these types, having to take the equivalent of "English for Dummies." He couldn't spell, he couldn't construct a sentence, and he couldn't read worth a damn. And that was 29 years ago. At a UC campus. I expect that standards have declined even further since then, especially as college has now become just an extension of high school. In fact, I expect that a lot of places like Beaver College, Lower Ohio River Valley State College, and Yankton Practical University are all being swamped by illiterate and innumerate students who barely graduated from their already-abysmal high schools. When a university education is an entitlement, gud stuends like Rasha are the result. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: hi
At 4:02 PM -0800 12/6/00, IT IS SHOOOSH wrote: >Daer Reciever... >i am a stuend in an American University... >and i am taking a public speaking course... >i have this week to give a persuasive speech (my final >speech)...i thought of doing it about persuading my >audience that seatbelts are not safe as we >thought...there is a stydu done recently in England >that showed that... > >i dont know,,is it a good topic,,or can u give me more > >thank you >Rasha > Daer Reciever Rasha, i am happi you r a stuend. amrika needs good stuends. baste on yur speling, i think u shuld becum a teecher. --tim -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Exclusionary Rule and Black Bag Jobs
At 9:56 PM -0800 12/5/00, Greg Broiles wrote: >On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 05:16:03PM -0800, Tim May wrote: >> >The legal fight over whether the monitor was legal and whether the >> >information so obtained are in fact records of criminal activity is a >> >side-show. It remains practical evidence of how insecure computer >> >equipment / OS's and pass-phrase based identity authentication combine to >> >reduce the effective security of a system. >> >> >> I fully support this comment that the whole issue of "legality" is a >> "side show." > >Exactly - not every attacker represents law enforcement, and not every >law enforcement attack is performed with the intention of creating >admissible evidence. The US' exclusionary rule is the exception, not >the rule, worldwide - most courts take more or less whatever evidence >they can get. And thugs and goons and spies of many flavors don't >give a shit about even pretending to cover their tracks when they're >not following the rules. And the "exclusionary rule" is mostly meaningless, anyway. Though there is much noise about "fruit of the poisoned tree" (or "poison tree," not sure which), a black bag job can generate other grounds for arrest and prosecution. For example, planned meets, planned heists, etc. One of my favorite movies of all time is "Heat," with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The cops are trying to prove a gang is pulling off a series of violent heists. Surveillance is heavy, and the surveillance per se is not intended to be used in a court: the cops are seeking to catch the gang in action. And then there's the old "confidential informant" ploy: "We got a tip from our snitch." Make no mistake about it, the exclusionary rule will do little to deter black bag jobs. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: IBM Uses Keystroke-monitoring in NJ Mob Case (was Re: BNA'sInternet Law News (ILN) - 12/5/00)
(dcsb and cryptography and other closed lists removed, for obvious reasons)
At 4:52 PM -0500 12/5/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>
>Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 08:47:20 -0800
>From: Somebody
>To: "R. A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: IBM Uses Keystroke-monitoring in NJ Mob Case (was Re:
>BNA'sInternet
> Law News (ILN) - 12/5/00)
>
>An instructive case. Apparently they used the keystroke monitoring
>to obtain the pgp passphrase, which was then used to decrypt the files.
>
>The legal fight over whether the monitor was legal and whether the
>information so obtained are in fact records of criminal activity is a
>side-show. It remains practical evidence of how insecure computer
>equipment / OS's and pass-phrase based identity authentication combine to
>reduce the effective security of a system.
I fully support this comment that the whole issue of "legality" is a
"side show."
We've known that keyboard sniffers were a major issue for many years.
I remember describing the sniffers ("keystroke recorders") which were
widely available for Macs in the early 90s. Others cited such
recorders for Windows and Unices.
We discussed at early CP meetings the issue, with various proposed
solutions. (For example, pass phrases stored in rings, pendants,
Newtons, Pilots. For example, zero knowledge approaches. For example,
reliance on laptops always in physical possession.)
Frankly, the PGP community veered off the track toward crapola about
standards, escrow, etc., instead of concentrating on the core issues.
PGP as text is a solved problem. The rest of the story is to ensure
that pass phrases and keys are not black-bagged.
Forget fancy GUIs, forget standards...concentrate on the real threat model.
--Tim May
--
(This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the
election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Re: Sunders point on copyright infringement & HTML
At 1:41 AM -0800 12/5/00, petro wrote: >Mr. May: > >> >>(And then there's Riad Wahby, whose signed messages are unopenable >>by Eudora Pro. He is doing _something_ which makes my very-common >>mailer choke on his messages. Not my problem, as his messages then >>get deleted by me unread. Again, standard ASCII is the lingua >>franca which avoids this problem.) > > He's apparently using GPG, and he has been told about this. > > He doesn't seem to care. I disagree. Riad has actually been a major participant in this discussion. He even fixed the recent problem with his body text being an attachment instead of inline. That's the MIME/mutt issue, at least. As to GPG vs. PGP, I wouldn't know about this, as I never try to check signatures. Aren't they inoperable anyway? --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Buying Mein Kampf via the Net
At 4:43 PM +0100 12/2/00, Tom Vogt wrote: >Duncan Frissell wrote: >> Germany's Kampf Furor Renews by Steve Kettmann > >actually, contrary to almost all other cases of censorship (not that I >say this isn't) the german state of bavaria owns the COPYRIGHT of "mein >kampf", and as such actually has some kind of standing in most of the >cases. yeah, it's still censorship, but at least they were bright enough >to do it in an intelligent way. in essence, only copies printed before >1945 are actually legal, because the copyright owner (bavaria) has not >authorized any later printings. This is misleading. There is much debate about ownership of the copyright, whether it has expired (as would normally be the case after roughly 70 years, whether the licenses sold to other publishers are valid, etc.). And it has been published by several publishing houses, which makes the Yahoo case apropos. For example: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/webedit/001014kampf.htm On the trail of the Mein Kampf royalties More from the government vaults By David Whitman On Oct. 20, 2000, Houghton Mifflin informed U.S.News & World Report that it would donate all royalties from the sales of Mein Kampf that the firm has received since 1979 to an as-yet-unspecified charity. Since 1979, Houghton Mifflin has collected about $400,000 in royalties alone from the sale of Mein Kampf. The publishing house will also donate future royalties from Mein Kampf to charity. ... --end of excerpt-- There are many more such reports about royalties, copyright. Quite odd that the publisher Houghton Mifflin would say they are donating all royalties since 1979 if in fact no copies have been published since 1945! Even more odd if some of us have copies in our libraries which were published much more recently than 1945. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Authenticate the "adult field", go to jail...
At 1:19 PM +0100 11/30/00, Tom Vogt wrote: >"R. A. Hettinga" wrote: >> >> ...an argument for bearer credentials if there ever was one... > >there's also a couple other things in there that I find highly >questionable. the worst is right at the end: > > > >> "We have forwarded it to the Justice Department's Office of International >> Affairs in Washington," Coggins said. "We are holding up hope that we're >> going to bring the Indonesians and the Russian to justice in the United >> States." > >excuse me? shouldn't that read "convince the indonesians and russians to >*start a local prosecution based on their own laws*" oh, I forgot. >the US-of-Assholes believes it's laws are valid for everyone and >everywhere. Unlike the Germans, who have never tried to get members of the American Nazi Party deported to Germany, who have never prosecuted Yahoo and AOL executives for violating German law by allowing thoughtcrime on their systems, and who have never arrested Americans transitting European cities for thoughtcrimes allegedly committed while inside the United States. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Sunders point on copyright infringement & HTML
At 11:41 AM -0500 11/30/00, Riad S. Wahby wrote: >-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- >Hash: SHA1 > >Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> No, it _doesn't_ work. Clicking on your "mutt-positron" icon >> presented to me in Eudora caused Microsoft Word to launch on my >> system. Which gave me this message: > >Oh, how embarrassing. I forgot to make the Content-disposition: field >inline instead of attachment. This was the source of the problem for >Eudora. > >I believe that is fixed now, and I've tested it with the copy of >Eudora Pro I have sitting on my Windows box. > Yes, it looks fine now. I'll have to tell a friend of mine about this, as he's been telling me great how "mutt" is...in person, as his e-mail arrives unreadable to me! Now we just need to get Ernest Hua and Greg Newby to stop formatting their messages as they do. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Pests on the List
At 12:41 AM -0600 11/30/00, Jim Choate wrote: >On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Tim May wrote: > >> As you like to say, "Bullshit!" >> >> I sometimes excerpt articles here. And to avoid the problems with >> HTML and "too much" and "too many headers," I usually have to spend >> time cutting and pasting from my screen to ensure that "What I See Is >> What I Send" (WISIWIS). > >Exactly why should how you decide to spend your time in any way commit me >to the same? > >Fundamentally socialist thinking. > This attitude summarizes why you are such a pest. You clutter the list with forwarded articles filled with headers and footers and ads and all the junk appearing on a typical browser page, then you claim that the reason you do this is because Netscape gave you no options. I describe how I get around this by spending a few minutes tidying-up the cruft. Your response is this message, above. A pest. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Vinge
At 6:49 PM -0500 11/29/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > >> On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> > Any idea when? Amazon's had me on backorder for 15 months. >> >> Try your local used bookstore for "True Names". > >Thanks for the offer, but I'm impatient for the new expanded >release. I've had >a copy of the original paperback for years. And in answer to various e-mails sent to me, including I think from this [EMAIL PROTECTED] person, I don't know when the new edition is coming out. Amazon is saying March 2001. Though this is 3 years after I was told it would be coming out (when Jim Frenkel was haranguing me about working over Xmas to finish my chapter, 4 years ago!!), I think Vinge's winning of the Hugo this past year may make the 2001 date more plausible. Most publishers try to ride the coat tails of things like Hugos. My point about the old edition is that $25 is a lot to pay for what is basically a novella. I predict those who pay $25 and finish the novella two hours later will be saying "I paid $25 for _this_?" TN is a seminal novella, but people should not be expecting it to be the Second Coming. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Jim Bell
At 7:16 PM -0800 11/27/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: > >Since this time I was trying to distill a formal protocol >specification, I was a lot more critical about fine points. > >Bell handwaved on the point of obtaining digital cash for >paying the assassin with. Bob the broker can go to the There's often "hand-waving" when reasoning about digital cash and how it is transferred, spent, redeemed, etc. Bell is not a cryptographer. Also, he didn't claim to have built a working system. (I think any of us could be called as witnesses to refute a state claim that he was deploying a real system!) However, much of your reasoning below is _also_ hand-waving. Fortunately, there's a way to cut through it. I'll cover this at the end, after your included section (which I would normally snip, but won't this time). >bank and obtain it in the usual way, of course - but then >has to transfer it to Alice the assassin, and there's a >sticky point involved. If he just "copies" the money to >Alice, she can double-spend with impunity and it's Bob's >identity that will be revealed. > >Conversely, if she provides tokens for the bank to sign, >then Bob has a major problem getting them past the cut-and- >choose protocol at the bank. Even if she provides enough >tokens to completely populate the cut-and-choose protocol, >those tokens still have to have splits of valid identification >information for somebody in them - and giving them all to >Bob so that Bob could complete the protocol with the bank - >would imply that Bob is privy to that information. Worse, >the bank will have the information from the cuts it didn't >choose, and has to make sure it all matches. Thus, Bob the >Broker and Dave the Banker can identify Alice - or at the >very least someone whose identification Alice has stolen. > >Finally, Carol the contributor has to have a way to check >the digital cash that was sent Alice - to make sure Bob >is not holding out her contribution. This works if Carol's >original coinage is simply encrypted under the key that the >successful predictor used - because Carol can perform the >same computation and make sure that bit string appears in >the "payment" package. But then Carol has the same problem >where Alice can double-spend with impunity and it's Carol's >identity that will be revealed. On the other hand, if >Carol's digital cash is transferred to Bob by protocol, >there's no way she can recognize it later under encryption. >(and under commercial digital cash protocols now in use, no >way Bob can retransfer it to Carol). So if Bob deposits the >money and obtains new digital cash, Carol needs a way to >look at that digital cash and know that it does in fact >carry the bank's signatures for the proper amounts - she >can't recognize her own bills, but she can check that the >total is correct from the last point at which she could. >But Carol has to be provided this information without >providing her enough information to just spend the cash >herself. > >In short, AP as described by Bell appears to depend on >digital cash having some exotic and not-otherwise-very- >useful properties, including a bank with a protocol that >allows issue-by-proxy, which has no readily apparent >commercial use. No protocol for digital cash that I'm >yet aware of has these properties. Hence, without some >major engineering work, and probably the active cooperation >of some bank, AP as described cannot be implemented. It's simple: If payer-anonymity (payer is untraceable by the payee) and payee-anonymity (payee is untraceable by the payer) exists, then the buyers and sellers of some "thing" are untraceable to each other. Whether that "thing" is a piece of warez or a bet in a murder pool (cf. Jack London for a much earlier discussion that Bell's). Arguing how complicated or confusing digital cash can be by citing a specific market like AP is what I mean by hand-waving. If, for example, the Mojo Nation folks succeed in making "mojo" both payer-anonymous AND payee-anonymous, then all of the hand-waving above is beside the point. > >I think some of these problems could be solved by >engineering; but A, it would be non-trivial work, and B, >I don't think I care to waste any effort on figuring out >secure ways to kill people outside the law. > > Bear RTFM. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
RE: On 60" tonight
At 10:04 AM -0500 11/27/00, Trei, Peter wrote: >60" Sixty seconds? Is that a real quickie version of 60' (Sixty >minutes? > >Notation counts (watch This Is Spinal Tap for another amusing >example of this type of goof-up). > >Peter Trei I had assumed he was talking about watching "60 Minutes" on his 60" television screen. I guess I was projecting. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: On 60" tonight
At 6:32 PM -0500 11/26/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >My on-screen guide said "FISA", tvguide.com says, >"Mike Wallace looks at one couple's claim that >they were set up by the FBI and wrongly convicted of espionage." I notice you're babbling about what's on "60 Minutes" but not saying a peep about the certification of the election in Bush's favor. Now that an incoming Republican Administration will be able to prosecute Bill for his various crimes, Hillary for her tax evasion and insider trading and Algore on treason charges, I can hear Air Force One warming up its engines for its flight to Cuba. Fidel has offered asylum to Bill and Al,but not to Hillary. She's too far left even for him. Hillary may have to take refuge with either the Palestinians, where she can hug Yassir's wife all she wants, or ZOG. Maybe she can set up a double-wide in "No Man's Land." A lesbian sistah like her would no doubt like the sound of that. Regarding the Demonrats who tried to steal this election, I say it's time to take out the trash. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
i need phosphorus bomb plans
At 1:29 PM -0500 11/24/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >my name is hate 669 i need phosphorus bomb plans Ms. Fishbein, We've already informed Sen. Feinstein's office that we will no longer process "help us make bombz" requests from her legislative assistants and interns. If Sen Feinstein wishes more evidence for her crusade to curtail speech, let her make the bomb requests herself. As always, --Tim May -- Voluntary Mandatory Self-Rating of this Article (U.S. Statute 43-666-970719). Warning: Failure to Correctly and Completely Label any Article or Utterance is a Felony under the "Children's Internet Safety Act of 1997," punishable by 6 months for the first offense, two years for each additional offense, and a $100,000 fine per offense. Reminder: The PICS/RSACi label must itself not contain material in violation of the Act. ** PICS/RSACi Voluntary Self-Rating (Text Form) ** : Suitable for Children: yes Age Rating: 5 years and up. Suitable for Christians: No Suitable for Moslems: No Hindus: Yes Pacifists: No Government Officials: No Nihilists: Yes Anarchists: Yes Vegetarians: Yes Vegans: No Homosexuals: No Atheists: Yes Caucasoids: Yes Negroids: No Mongoloids: Yes Bipolar Disorder: No MPD: Yes and No Attention Deficit Disorder:Huh? --Contains discussions of sexuality, rebellion, anarchy, chaos,torture, regicide, presicide, suicide, aptical foddering. --Contains references hurtful to persons of poundage and people of color.Sensitive persons are advised to skip this article. **SUMMARY** Estimated number of readers qualified to read this: 1 Composite Age Rating: 45 years
Re: powerline
At 2:16 AM + 11/23/00, Ahmad Saufi wrote: >hi, can u inform me about accessing internet via power line technology, >if u have any news or info about it,please send/inform it to me. >tq Allah Aqbar, Ahmad! You are to know, please inform it, that you are to use power line technology only if you are not to use battery technology. Help to be glad of you. --Tim al-May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Public Key Infrastructure: An Artifact...
At 11:40 AM -0800 11/20/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>On Mon, 20 Nov 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>>as pure asside ... any SSL server certificate signed by any CA
>> in my browswer's CA list is acceptable.
>>
>>my broswer makes no distinction on which CA signed what ...
>> and/or even what they signed. If I get a certificate signed
>> by any CA in my browswers list that says foo.bar ...
>
>
>I think that one of the major problems with PKI is the "binary-ness"
>of it. Everything gets shoveled into "acceptable" or "not acceptable"
>at the end of the process, but I don't think it's appropriate in
>trust decisions to have stuff shoveled into "acceptable" and "not
>acceptable" piles at the very beginning.
>
>We can't give a numeric score to the degree of trust we place in a
>CA. There's no protocol for exchanging information about breaches
>in trust regarding particular certs, so we can't have a policy for
>auto-updating our trust model.
These problems with binary trust in hierarchical models ("trust this
cert because the highest node said to trust it") have been dealt with
many, many times.
Cf. my own articles on probabalistic networks, belief networks, and
Dempster-Shafer measures of belief.
I don't even see how thoughtful people can continue to believe this
is still a debatable issue. Those pushing X.509 and similar
hierarchical systems have their own statist axes to grind...and they
like the commission they get off of each of the King's certs.
--Tim May
--
(This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the
election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Bob's Bank. Hi, I'm Bob. Just slip it in this pocket here.
At 9:07 AM -0800 11/17/00, Marshall Clow wrote: >At 11:52 AM -0500 11/17/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] forwarded: >>http://www.foxnews.com/national/1117/d_ap_1117_84.sml >># >>#Group accused of operating bank to defraud IRS >># >>#10.54 a.m. ET (1609 GMT) November 17, 2000 >># >>[snip] >>#The illegal bank, operated out a warehouse just east of Portland, >>#offered customers anonymous banking transactions to conceal income >>#and assets, according to IRS Special Agent Kathleen Sulmonetti. >>#Nine hundred customers deposited $186 million in the warehouse >>#bank with the money then being shuffled into legitimate commercial >>#bank accounts, she said. > >900 people --> $186M. That's $206K each. >That's a lot of money to put into a 'bank'. >-- And a lot of money for "Christian Patriots." Not to belittle either Christians or Patriots, but folks like this typically have problems making the monthly payments on their double-wides. Smells fishy, so to speak. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: BRITAIN DEPLOYS 'CYBERCOPS' TO FIGHT INTERNET CRIME (Fwd)
At 3:33 PM -0800 11/15/00, Bill Stewart wrote: >Unnamed Administration Sources forwarded this message about a >new Internet-based terrorist group in Offshore Northwestern Europe: > >-- >Britain deploys 'cybercops' to fight Internet crime >By NICK HOPKINS >The Guardian >November 15, 2000 > >LONDON - The rising tide of Internet crime - hacking, porn rackets, >extortion and fraud - is to be tackled in Britain by a squad of "cybercops." > >British Home Secretary Jack Straw said the unit will be headed by 80 >officers recruited from the police, customs service, national crime squad >and National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). But since Havenco is completely exempt from British laws, right?, money launderers, pornographers, IRA bombers, extortionists, racketeers, and Benny Hill fans will simply relocate their machines to Havenco. Nyah, nyah, nyah. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: Lawyers leading in Florida!
At 4:40 PM -0500 11/15/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >At 10:06 AM -0800 on 11/15/00, Tim May wrote: > > >> the same lawyers who got O.J. off will get Gore into >> the White House. > >Yup. > >We're going for the Nullification Trifecta here, boys and girls: > >1. Jury Nullification -- O.J. >2. Legislative Nullification -- Cigar Willie meets the Blue Dress >3. Electorial Nullification -- Gore goes to Klaatu without a Baruda Nicto > >The republic is over, welcome to the empire? 1. "If it do not fit, you must acquit! 'Sides, if de odds a dat DNA whack shit be one in a hunderd million, and day be 200 million 'Mericans, most of dem whiteys, how come day not be lookin' for dat utter guy?" 2. "It depends on what the definition of "is" is. And I did not have sex with _that_ woman. Besides, there is no controlling legal authority." 3. "We want a re-vote until the will of the people is heard. Besides, our elderly Jewish voters were confused. 'Sides, dat ballot not be in 'Bonics so a brudda be unnerstannin' dat whack shit." The problems are obvious. The solutions equally obvious. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Lawyers leading in Florida!
I can no longer keep count of how many lawsuits and other actions are now in the courts in various counties in Florida and heading for the State Supreme Court. At least a dozen, though some are being consolidated. More have been added, so the overall count will likely go up. There is not even any point in my trying to summarize what the various camps are arguing about...pregnant chads, due process, dimpled chads, explanations of why recounts are required, hanging chads, voter fraud, Carol Roberts switching ballots, swinging door chads, constitutionality of recounts, rights of African-Americans, sunlight tests, butterfly ballots, legality of absentee ballots arriving late, chads, and indented pregnant dimpled chads. While there were past close elections, and even elections where fraud probably gave the election to the loser, this looks to be a curiously modern election: the same lawyers who got O.J. off will get Gore into the White House. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: BSA deploys imaginary pirate software detector vans
(Large number of groups/lists he/she crossposted to have been removed.) At 2:32 PM -0800 11/13/00, Tib wrote: > >Hope I'm not being totally naive about the capability of computer >hardware, but >I sure don't recall my PC (or any that I have ever had or can think of >seeing) having short range broadcasting capabilities. How would this be >theorheticly possible (despite the utter nonsense that the rumor must be) to >accomplish, if at all? Yes, you are being totally naive. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
Re: the ballot
At 10:50 AM -0800 11/14/00, Tim May wrote: > >The Democrat untermenchen are even trying to overrule the local >canvassing boards which have said they "see no point" in a manual >recount. Ja, I know the correct spelling is "untermenschen." After naming my Siamese cat "Nietzsche," I finally learned not to make any spelling errors in that oft-misspelled name. I even usually pronounce the name as it should be pronounced, not the usual American form. (Though one source says the name was originally Polish and so the "nee-chee" variant is almost acceptable.) --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
The Ant and the Grasshopper, Election Version
The Ant and the Grasshopper, Election Version Original The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold. Da Hoppers in Da 'Hood The ants work hard to make their businesses prosperous, their farms productive. They save and invest and educate their children. The grasshoppers party all summer, hangin' out with the homeys, struttin' on the beaches, and figurin' that Massah Bill Clintonhopper in the Big White Plantation House will keep on sending dat federal welfare money to Florida to keep the crack pipes full. To a Grasshopper-American, it's all obvious: Why work when government is there? Why save when Hillary is promising to raise taxes on the ants? Hard work is for suckers, or, as they say, suckas. Besides, Albert Gorehopper invented the Internet. Ironically, the hard-working ants make use of the Internet, but the crack-smoking hopheads say that "books are for whitey." Better yet, to the grasshoppers, the top Demohoppers have made it their top campaign pledge to take away the guns of the ants. (The Hopper Bloods and Crips get a good laugh out of this one, as they know the hopper gangbangers will still have their Uzis and AKs.) Winter arrives, and the Demohoppers have made their final promises to the crack-dealing, Bingo-playing, welfare-taking grasshoppers of Florida. The ants are wary, fearing what the grasshoppers will do in the name of "democratic fairness." The ants appear to have won the vote, but the Demohoppers in Palm Beach County claim that some butterflies confused them and that they want a "do over." Hopper Jesse Jackson, who once called New York City "Hymietown," has made a new alliance with the "Judenhoppers" of affluent Palm Beach. He calls in Al Sharpton, Alan Dershowitz, and Tawana Brawley to help his Hopper Crusade. He threatens a war between the ants and the grasshoppers unless the hoppers get as many chances to vote and re-vote and fiddle with the ballots as they need to let Albert Gorehopper win. The grasshopper strategy is to take the counties which were most heavily infested with grasshoppers and then do a "manual count" to find more votes which the neutral machines had rejected because they were incorrectly punched, or double punched, or had chads hanging. The grasshoppers have been told that, from basic statistics, this biased re-counting will ensure that Albert Gorehopper gets enough extra votes to win. The ants say that this is a theft of the election and that the grasshoppers just want more handouts from the hopheads in Hopperton, D.C., and, besides, if the grasshoppers had bothered to learn how to read and weren't smoking so much crack they'd've had no problems with butterflies. The Chief Grasshopper sends his team of lawyerlocusts, close relatives of grasshoppers, into Florida. The ants try to block a recount in hopper havens like Broward, Palm, and Volushia. The Grasshopper-Americans scream dat dis be racist! The promised war begins and the ants kill all the grasshoppers. No longer will the grasshoppers use the "democratic process" to take the food the ants had worked so hard for. Life is once again good. [Note: I wrote everything here except the "Original." I mention this because it is routine for people to pass around various versions of the "Ant and the Grasshopper" without indicating who wrote which parts. So, Tim May wrote all but the opening set-up paragraph. Tim May, 11-13-2000] -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A secure voting protocol
I did some more digging on various Florida sites which discuss absentee ballots. It looks like Florida makes a clear distinction between what I'll call "ordinary absentee ballots" and what I'll call "military absentee ballots." Ordinary absentee ballots--students, tourists in Israel or France, bluehaired yentas living in Tel Aviv, etc.--must have their ballots returned by 7 pm on the day of the election. _Military_ absentee ballots get the "postmarked by election day, received within 10 days" treatment. This has not been widely reported, and contradicts the many press interviews with residents of foreign countries who are presumed to possibly be the hinge votes. At least I have not seen such a distinction made, and I've been following this thing for probably 14 hours a day for the past five or six days. Here is language from Bay County's Web site: "Absentee ballots must be returned to the Supervisor of Elections by the voter, either in person or by mail. If the voter personally delivers the ballot, he or she must present his or her own picture identification before the ballot will be accepted. If the voter is unable to mail or personally deliver the ballot, the voter may designate in writing a person to return the ballot. The designated person may NOT return more than two (2) absentee ballots per election, other than his or her own ballot, except that additional ballots may be returned for members of the designee's immediate family (as defined in the section on requesting absentee ballots). The designee must provide a written authorization from the voter as well as present his or her own picture identification. Voted absentee ballots must be received no later than 7 p.m. election day at the office of the Supervisor of Elections. A VOTED BALLOT CANNOT BE ACCEPTED AT A POLLING PLACE. MILITARY INFORMATION Military personnel may apply for voter registration or request absentee ballots with a Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) which may be obtained from the unit voting officer. If the FPCA is not available, phone or send a written request to the Supervisor of Elections Office, 300 E. 4th Street, Room 112, Panama City, FL 32401-3093. Spouses and dependents are considered to be of the same category of absentee voters as military members and generally should follow the same rules. U.S. Embassies and Consulates can assist in completing, witnessing, notarizing and mailing FPCA forms, absentee ballots and other election materials. Federal portions of general election and presidential preference primary ballots voted by persons outside the U.S. are counted if postmarked no later than election day and received within 10 days of the election. Additional military election information is available from: -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A secure voting protocol
At 2:41 PM -0800 11/13/00, Tim May wrote: > >No mention of getting a witness, etc. > >I'll leave it for others to check on Florida, Idaho, etc. versions. > I just checked the Florida site, http://www.absenteeballot.net/Florida.htm, and found no mention whatsoever of requirements that someone witness the process, etc. However, I _did_ find this interesting language: "Marked ballots must be mailed or delivered in person reaching the supervisor of elections' office not later than 7 p.m. on the day of the election." So, what's with this business about the absentee ballots coming in until Friday, November 17th? --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A secure voting protocol
At 5:53 PM -0500 11/13/00, Declan McCullagh wrote: >On Mon, Nov 13, 2000 at 11:08:01AM -0800, Tim May wrote: >> A "vote at home" protocol is vulnerable to all sorts of mischief that >> has nothing to do with hackers intercepting the vote, blah blah. > >Righto. Absentee ballots require a witness, usually an officer (if >you're in the military) or a notary-type, to reduct in par tthe >intimidation problem. California absentee ballots require no such thing. My parents, as I said, voted absentee California for many years. They simply filled out their absentee ballots and dropped them in the mailbox. Maybe the rules were later changed. From 1961 to 1977, this is the way it was. I just checked. http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_m.htm "To vote an absentee ballot, a voter needs to submit a completed application or letter to the county elections official between 29 days and 7 days before the election. The application or letter must contain the voter's name as registered, the registered voter address, the address to which the absentee ballot should be sent if different than the registered voter address, the name and date of the election for which the applicant wants the mail-in ballot, and the voter's signature. Once the application is processed by the county elections official, the proper ballot type/style will be sent to the voter. You must then cast your ballot and insert it in the envelope provided for this purpose, making sure you complete all required information on the envelope. Although you sign the outer envelope in order to establish your eligibility to vote, your absentee ballot will be separated from the envelope prior to counting the ballots so that there is no way to violate your confidential vote. You may mail back your voted absentee ballot, return it in person to the polls or county elections office on election day, or, under certain conditions, authorize a legally-allowable third party (relative)to return the ballot in your behalf -- but regardless of how the ballot is returned, it MUST be received by the county elections office by the time polls close (8 p.m.) on election day. Late-arriving absentee ballots are not counted." No mention of getting a witness, etc. I'll leave it for others to check on Florida, Idaho, etc. versions. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A secure voting protocol
At 6:42 PM + 11/13/00, Ken Brown wrote: >Augusto Jun Devegili replied to Tim May: > > >> > It won't happen in our lifetimes. It may happen in European nations, >> > but only because the average citizen does what he is told to do more >> > so than American paranoids and individualists will do. >> >> [Augusto] I would like to see this happening after the scientific/academic >> community approves a secure protocol and its implementation architecture. >> And I also understand that it will be quite hard to convince the general >> voter of the security of e-voting. > >I think I have to agree with Tim here. That blind-sign-sign-blind-vote >protocol might be wonderful but is not going to be accepted by the >average voter. Or even the brainiest. I saw a good piece on one of the networks about why "voting at your home PC" is not a good idea for _other_ reasons. To wit, families kibitzing about the vote. Or watching while the wife or husband votes properly. Or even people literally buying votes and then watching while their bought votes are voted the right way. None of these things is even fractionally as possible with the "secure voting booth" protocol we have today, where only one person is in a booth at any given time. The wife whose husband has said he'll beat the shit out of her if she doesn't vote for Bush can vote for whomever she wishes and know that no one will know how she voted. A "vote at home" protocol is vulnerable to all sorts of mischief that has nothing to do with hackers intercepting the vote, blah blah. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Late-postmarked ballots from ZOG-occupied Palestine
At 11:28 AM + 11/13/00, Ken Brown wrote: >Tim May wrote: > >> The solution has been obvious for a long time: absentee ballots must >> be received by the close of business on the polling day. Those who >> know they are going to be out of their voting area must mail their >> ballots in time to arrive. This eliminates this particular hazard. > >When I was listening to the news last Tuesday it took me a while to >realise that this *wasn;'t* the case. It seems so sort of obvious you'd >think it would have been adopted years ago. ... Yeah, it's bizarre. Absentee ballots are still arriving from overseas locations (and other states, though the USPS is pretty efficient these days and most should have arrived by last Thursday if they were actually postmarked by Tuesday). Some of the ballots from Qatar, Zimbabwe, Mongolia, Israel, and all of the other various places are presumably still sitting in post offices in Dushambe, Timbuktu, and Haifa. And some are on transport planes. And some are now in the post offices in Florida. Hell, Yahood Barak may have even brought in some of the Florida absentee ballots on ZOG Force One. Any doubts about what Shin Bet and Mossad managed to do with those absentee ballots once the closeness of the election was established while the absentee ballots were still on ZOG soil? I was amused to see the "high security" on the absentee ballots received by the election offices: a wooden box with a _Masterlock_ key lock, one of those $3.99-for-two locks one sees at Home Depot or the local hardware store. Forget "National Technical Means" to get through these locks...any two-bit thief could pick one of these locks and either alter the ballots or insert new ones. (Spoiling the ballots of one's opponent would be a lot easier.) The election may hinge (see my post on "Causality and Close Elections") on these uncounted absentee ballots sitting in Florida. Of course, it is now looking very likely that the "hand count in heavily Democrat-trending counties" will prevail. As all numerate folks have noted, resampling of selected counties is inherently biased. The Democrats _will_ pick up a few thousand more votes over what Bush picks up, just as the Republicans might have picked up a few thousand more votes over the Democrats had a Republican-leaning county like Duval County been resampled manually. Which is just as well. I'd rather see Al Gore and his New York tag team of Alan Dershowitz and Lawrence Tribe steal this election. Then we can get on with the business of "scorced earth" and sending hundreds of thousands of these criminals to the wall. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Bush Florida lead dwindles toward zero...
At 11:08 PM -0600 11/12/00, Mac Norton wrote: >Of course you don't. However, this list is monitored by >many people who never post. They need to hear that there >are some of us here who know stupidity when we see it. >You're smarter than "fuck that," and I'm ashamed of you. Gee, poor little Mac Norton, who rarely posts, is "ashamed" of me. I'm crushed. * P L O N K * --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Hate monger Tim May strikes again
At 11:17 PM -0500 11/12/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >The hate mongering Tim May who claims not to hate Jews, tells us: > >>I'm fully aware that the Democrats will likely win through exactly >>this trickery. The Dems used their Jew lawyers very quickly and very >>shrewdly. The Republicans trusted to the count and recount, which >>they won. >> > >Well, us gun grabing liberal Democrats with our Jew lawyers and our Jew >V.P. will win. >Hope your ready Tim, were coming for you and your guns. Yes, I know. I have known this for many years. Thankfully, many folks were liberal Jews in Weimar Germany. Guns were icky. Guns were inconsistent with reading the Torah, selling diamonds, and arguing for a more powerful central state. Well, look where supporting gun confiscation got the Jews a few years laterL: "Up in smoke." Your liberal Jews are indeed coming to get our guns. And we folks will be ready. (I said "we folks." Your own "hope your ready" and "us gun grabing" patterns, esp. with the "us" error, give some useful supporting evidence as to which name you used to post under. Thanks for providing more clues.) --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Bush Florida lead dwindles toward zero...
At 10:19 PM -0600 11/12/00, Mac Norton wrote: >Tim, that's just stupid. >MacN And I don't need your prissy comments about my choice of words. --Tim May > >On Sun, 12 Nov 2000, Tim May wrote: >> >Live and let live. >> >> >> Fuck that. >> >> >> --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Bush Florida lead dwindles toward zero...
At 9:18 PM -0500 11/12/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >White Supremacist Tim "I'd like to see a race riot" May Moroned: >#Of course, the Republicans will have to call for a manual recount of >#Duval County and all of the other counties where the same statistical >#examination should turn up votes for THEM. > >Apparently the request wasn't made within the required 72 hour period, >so, Bush lost out there. Of course, recounts there wouldn't make much >difference anyway: no fucked-up ballot. I think such recounts should >be allowed even if they missed the 72-hour deadline. Hey, Vulis, I was the one who pointed this out earlier than nearly anyone else. Yesterday, early afternoon, my time. Check it out. I'm fully aware that the Democrats will likely win through exactly this trickery. The Dems used their Jew lawyers very quickly and very shrewdly. The Republicans trusted to the count and recount, which they won. As I have said, it will be a "good" thing that the Democrats steal the election this way. > >Live and let live. Fuck that. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
2:15 am, Eastern Time--The Election Train Wreck
I just watched a group of punch drunk commission members debate whether to order a _manual recount_ of all ballots in Palm Beach County. They voted 2-1, and unless this is overturned (?), they will begin planning the recount effort on Monday. The count of a sample of 1% of the votes took all of today, so the count of 100 times as many total ballots will presumably take on the order of 100 days. Perhaps they can farm it out to temps and secretaries and get it done in just several weeks. They analyzed the "chads" and counted 33 additional votes for Gore, 14 for Bush. So this would imply about 19 additional votes for Gore over Bush. Then, extrapolating to the full population, 1900 additional votes for Gore over Bush (modulo statistical fluctuations). Of course, the Republicans will have to call for a manual recount of Duval County and all of the other counties where the same statistical examination should turn up votes for THEM. What a cluster fuck. Punch drunk, dazed burrowcrats triggering this train wreck. I will not forget this week, and not forget watching this latest event live, as it happened. Kind of the the "moon landing" of political train wrecks. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A secure voting protocol
At 4:19 PM -0800 11/11/00, petro wrote: >> -- >>At 03:11 PM 11/10/2000 -0800, Tim May wrote: >>> Physical ballot voting has its problems, but at least people >>> _understand_ the concept of marking a ballot, as opposed to >>> "blinding the exponent of their elliptic curve function and then >>> solving the discrete log problem for an n-out-of-m multi-round >>> tournament." >> >>Ideally, we should organize an election so that the illiterate, the >>stupid, and the drunk will generally fail to vote correctly. >>Unfortunately someone would then issue the handy dandy automatic >>party vote generator, and hand it out to the illiterate, the >>stupid, and the drunk, adding a bottle of cheap wine when handing >>it out to the drunk. > > The easiest way to do this would be to have the ballot books >only contain numbers, and the sample ballots mailed to each >(allegedly) registered voter provide the mapping from name/issue to >number. I did not write the paragraph you attributed to me (presumably through not-so-careful snipping). Please be more careful. If necessary, manually add a line like "James Donald said:" --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Fwd: Candidates' Websites Blocked by CyberPatrol
Wow, check this out. Not surprising, in retrospect. Teacher: "Johnny, why didn't you finish your research report on that candidate and his views?" Johnny: "The library computer blocked me." Teacher: "It's to save the children." > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Number Six) > Subject: Candidates' Websites Blocked by CyberPatrol > Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 23:16:57 GMT > Newsgroups: misc.survivalism,alt.survival > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > http://peacefire.org/blind-ballots/ > > Candidates' Websites Blocked by CyberPatrol, N2H2 > > It turns out that politicians' websites are being blocked in schools > and libraries as inappropriate for viewing by children (and, in many > cases, adults). The report, "Blind Ballots", takes a look at two dozen > candidates whose campaigns have been censored in our public schools > and libraries. One of the products blocks pretty equally across the > political spectrum; the other takes a big chunk out of Republicans, > Libertarians and conservative third parties. One Republican candidate > (so far) has changed his position on filters because of this report. > -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Democrat FUD: "If our lead does not mount, you must re-count!"
At 1:04 PM -0800 11/11/00, Tim May wrote: >At 11:55 AM -0800 11/11/00, Tim May wrote: >> >>* Stage Four of the FUD Campaign, current: "We demand a manual recount. Two > >* Stage 4.5 of the FUD Campaign, Saturday afternoon: "It's the >chads, the little pieces of paper punched out but hanging by a >thread." (How appropriate: "hanging by a thread") The Democrats are >demanding that ballots marked as spoiled be checked to see if they >have "indentations" or "chads." > >Of course, how these indentations or chads have anything to do with >Democrats vs. Republicans is unclear... > >Except that the Democrat Party is requesting the recounts in heavily >Democrat precincts! * Stage 4.6 of the FUD Campaign, late Saturday afternoon: It was just revealed on Fox News that the northern Florida county with the 20,000 spoiled ballots is Duval County and that there WILL NOT BE A RECOUNT of the ballots because the 72-hour time limit for challenging the count has passed. (This was from the female director/whatever of the Elections Commission in Duval County, who said that the ballots could not be subject to the same kind of inspection being seen in the other counties to the south because the 72-hour time limit had just passed) In other words, the Democrats are getting a third count in heavily-Democrat counties because they hustled into town with their lawyers and filed at least 8 lawsuits and screamed and squawked that their peoples had been "discriminated against." Though they've changed the grounds for their complaints several times--see earlier FUD points--this "held the door open" for the manual scrutiny of the "chads" and "indentations" and "voter intent" we're now seeing in the precincts the Democrats are having re-re-counted. The Republicans, on the other hand, took the results as a done deal and thus have let the 72-hour deadline in Duval County (and other such counties, one presumes) pass. "You snooze, you lose." Ah, America. Where the true victors are lawyers. And where the Democrats will likely steal the election by getting "a third bite of the apple." Fucked up, yes. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Democrat FUD: "If our lead does not mount, you must re-count!"
At 11:55 AM -0800 11/11/00, Tim May wrote: > >* Stage Four of the FUD Campaign, current: "We demand a manual >recount. Two counts, the first one and then the state-mandated >machine recount, are not enough. We are certain that if certain >counties are counted again, and again, that the extra votes we need >will be found." > >[As Jesse Jackson and Johnnie Cockroach might singsong: "If our lead >does not mount, you must re-count!'] * Stage 4.5 of the FUD Campaign, Saturday afternoon: "It's the chads, the little pieces of paper punched out but hanging by a thread." (How appropriate: "hanging by a thread") The Democrats are demanding that ballots marked as spoiled be checked to see if they have "indentations" or "chads." Of course, how these indentations or chads have anything to do with Democrats vs. Republicans is unclear... Except that the Democrat Party is requesting the recounts in heavily Democrat precincts! They understand that by recounting, and recounting, and then switching to manual analysis of ballots IN DEMOCRAT-LEANING PRECINCTS they can probably pick up some additional votes for Gore. Simple statistics. The obvious point is that such additional vacuum-cleaning should not be allowed. And if it is allowed in a single precinct, absent some strong evidence that that precinct had precinct-specific "chad problems" with its machines, then ALL precincts should be counted in an identical fashion. A daunting, and expensive, and time-consuming process. A manual inspection of six million ballots will take several weeks. Which may be the Gore strategy, ironically. Get the process in Florida so bogged-down that Florida is left out of the Electoral College process on December 18th. According to many legal scholars, the election would then hinge on a majority of those who were at the EC meeting, even if Florida were to be absent. Advantage: Gore. Fucked up, yes. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Declan on Bell
At 11:54 AM -0800 11/11/00, Eric Cordian wrote: >Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> Bell was not coerced into taking the plea agreement; if >> anything, he seems to have more mental resources to fight >> the system than other defendants I have interviewed. > >Unless the plea agreement specifies a sentence equal to the upper range >that would likely be applied after a conviction was won, it is not >difficult to infer that the plea agreement is being signed in order to >lock-in a shorter sentence, with the accuracy of the government's account >of the alleged misdeeds being a lesser consideration. > >Most plea bargaining, by its very nature, is coercion plain and simple. > >Just as the common practice of cutting deals in return for testimony the >prosecution wants, or deferring sentencing until such testimony has been >provided, results in coerced testimony. And, as all of us have commented on many times, there are so many things which are crimes, so many piled-on charges, that Bell could have been facing 20 years in prison for his minor, minor transgressions. Hilary takes bribes and runs a $1000 investment up to $100,000 with inside knowledge. Hilary also hides evidence in a criminal investigation, somewhere in the _private quarters_ of the White House. It mysteriously shows up, part of it, three years later, on a table in the private quarters. And so on. No charges filed. The fix was in. Meanwhile, Jim Bell keeps getting raided, busted, and charged with various bullshit minor transgressions. (As for advocating murder, Hilary was overheard on election night at a party, railing against Ralph Nader for doing what he did. Fine. But she was also overheard saying that "we ought to just have him killed."--I heard this on one of the many talk shows I was listening to, possibly it was Tim Russert or J.D. Haworth on "Imus." Not sure.) As a felon, I appreciate that a raid on my house could probably net enough b.s. evidence to give a rigged court the excuse to sentence me to 20 years and fine me a few million bucks. So many things are now illegal that a prosecutor can "indict a ham sandwich," as the saying goes. And then use the threat of 20 years in prison to coerce nearly any kind of plea bargain, surveillance-state parole, etc. (The whole parole system is another can of worms. Can't have guns, can't use a computer, can't associate with thought criminals, can't read controversial material, probation officer can enter home at any time, various other police state measures. All done because the courts have stacked the deck.) The American legal system is notoriously corrupt. Sure, most of the things which are "illegal" are never actually prosecuted: they are there as bargaining chips to get plea agreements so that prosecutors can get convictions on their scorecards and campaign posters. Police states _like_ it when there are tens of thousands of laws on the books. Little wonder the government seeks to disarm us. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Looking for statistically-unlikely surges in absentee ballots
At 2:20 PM -0500 11/11/00, Declan McCullagh wrote: >On Fri, Nov 10, 2000 at 12:47:45PM -0800, Tim May wrote: >> I just heard Karen Hughes of the Bush Campaign express concern about >> the status of absentee ballots being mailed AFTER the outcome of the >> election was shown to be so close. In particular, after the legal >> cut-off date. > >Here's a link to the Florida law on absentee ballots: > >--- >http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0101/SEC67.HTM&Title=->2000->Ch0101->Section%2067 > >(1) The supervisor of elections shall safely keep in his or her office >any envelopes received containing marked ballots of absent electors, >and he or she shall, before the canvassing of the election returns, >deliver the envelopes to the county canvassing board along with his or >her file or list kept regarding said ballots. > >(2) All marked absent electors' ballots to be counted must be received >by the supervisor by 7 p.m. the day of the election. All ballots >received thereafter shall be marked with the time and date of receipt >and filed in the supervisor's office. >--- > >I must be missing something. Sure looks like the deadline was Tuesday, >with perhaps an exemption for overseas ballots elsewhere in the law? There are many, many news reports about November 17th, this coming Friday, being the deadline for all absentee ballots. This from election officials, state legislators, reporters, legal scholars, etc. So, yes, I would say that there must obviously be other language on this. If not, then you could have the journalistic scoop of the century, er, for a few days, until bigger bombshells fall. And this is the same situation, more or less, in other states. Language about ballot envelopes being _postmarked_ on or before Election Day. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Greetins from ZOG-occupied Palestine
At 1:19 AM -0800 11/11/00, Bill Stewart wrote: >At 08:34 PM 11/10/00 -0600, Phaedrus wrote: > > >actually, since ballots were supposed to be postmarked two days ago, >>killing you now wouldn't help (even if I were for it, which I'm not, >>personally) unless something very bad were going on > >Yup. It's now in the hands of disgruntled Postal Workers. > >(And apparently there _has_ been a certain amount of malfeasance >in handling the mail ballots, though it's not clear the P.O. were >directly involved.And the Postmaster General's on the >succession list, at least in the 1947 version.) Speaking of malfeasance in handling the mailed ballots, I heard a Democrat spinmeister saying last night that foreign consulates can advise their local Americans that they can "sign an affidavit saying they tried to get a November 7th postmark but were unable to do so." He said: "Americans in other countries can still send in their ballots with a signed affidavit attesting that they had been unable to get a November 7th postmark." So, those FedExed ballots from Kosovo or Israel or China may not have been sent until...today. Hilarious. Things are falling apart better and with more acrimony than I'd hoped. Republicans are threatening to demand a recount of 22,000 (yes, more than in Palm Beach County) uncounted/spoiled ballots in a northern Florida county which went 60,000-to-40,000 for Bush over Gore. They expect that if these odds hold up, as expected, that Bush could pick up thousands of votes in this heavily Republican county. And so it goes, with recounts, judicial adjustments, do overs, and other such things requested in dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of counties. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: "We may face a situation like a general nuclear war"
At 4:43 PM -0800 11/10/00, Tim May wrote: >Noted presidential historian Michael Beschloss just had a very >interesting point on the "Lehrer News Hour" on PBS. He thinks it >fairly likely now that the spreading litigation, recounts, and >marches in the streets will lead to a situation much like a nuclear >war. By "like a nuclear war" he meant, and I mean, like the escalation scenarios for a nuclear war. Not the damage effects, unless things get _really_ weird. This was clear from his context, and from general game-theoretic discussions over the years about nuclear war. For example, "use them or lose them," counter-force," "scorched earth," and similar scenarios and metaphors. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
"We may face a situation like a general nuclear war"
Noted presidential historian Michael Beschloss just had a very
interesting point on the "Lehrer News Hour" on PBS. He thinks it
fairly likely now that the spreading litigation, recounts, and
marches in the streets will lead to a situation much like a nuclear
war.
(For those of you now watching and reading the massive coverage,
there are many news developments: New Mexico is now back in the
"undecided" category, as additional late votes are counted--including
200 votes mysteriously missing but recovered today, the police and
DA's office in Milwaukee are investigating reports that Democrats
were offering cartons of cigarettes for votes for Gore and that piles
of ballots were handed out in heavily-Democrat precincts, the Iowa,
Oregon, and Wisconsin results may be challenged, and a million
absentee votes in California have yet to be counted.)
Beschloss, by the way, said that this event is "much weirder than
Watergate." He said it's a potentially much more serious crisis than
Watergate was. And it has developed in 48 hours, not two years.
Delicious.
Whichever side loses, it will attack the winning side with a new
venom. Scorched earth, as Leon Panetta just put it. I like Beschoss'
characterization of it as an escalating nuclear war scenario.
There's a mass "Re-vote in Florida!" rally happening tomorrow (and
the 18th, and perhaps every Saturday afterwards...) in 50 cities and
towns. Northern California alone has several of these. I may go to
the one in Santa Cruz tomorrow ("Town Clock") and spread what
disinformation I can.
Delicious.
--Tim May
--
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A secure voting protocol
At 9:40 PM -0200 11/10/00, Augusto Jun Devegili wrote: >- Original Message - >From: "Tim May" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> The problems with these protocols are obvious to all who have looked >> at these things over the years: > >> * most voters, at least 99% of them, will not understand or trust or >> bother with the protocols > >[Augusto] Well... how many people don't understand SSL and still use it for >home banking? 1. It's built-in and they barely notice it. 2. Many folks don't think about wiretapping for online transactions, or sniffers. They would likely do limited amounts of home banking even without SSL. High rollers don't move large amounts of money around with MyHomePiggyBank and QuickenMe. 3. In particular, there are many people who don't do any online banking at all. Which is fine, as this is their choice and they have ample alternatives. But such is not the case with voting, where we cannot disenfranchise large blocs of people who distrust online voting. 4. The basic concept of point-to-point crypto, such as with PGP or SSL or whatever, is well-understood. It's the concept of an envelope. Such is not the case with the notoriously complex blinding protocols. People will bog down the first time the explanation is attempted. >... > >[Augusto] One can still maintain public sites for casting votes, using the >same "MyVote" system and identifying themselves with smartcards. And people will of course fear that the link between their smartcards and all of the interactions on the local terminal will be made. The point is that they don't have their own PC, their own local processor, to do all the necessary computations and local storage. > >[Augusto] I would like to see this happening after the scientific/academic >community approves a secure protocol and its implementation architecture. You're welcome to "see it happen." Leave me out of out, though. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Late-postmarked ballots from ZOG-occupied Palestine
At 4:13 PM -0800 11/10/00, Bill Stewart wrote: >So do military personnel who are officially Florida residents >get Extra Slack on their absentee ballots if they're overseas? >They're as likely to vote for the Ruling Party than Israelis are. > I have no idea. The solution has been obvious for a long time: absentee ballots must be received by the close of business on the polling day. Those who know they are going to be out of their voting area must mail their ballots in time to arrive. This eliminates this particular hazard. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A secure voting protocol
At 2:46 PM -0800 11/10/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: >Okay, this information is old hat to most folk here - but >it seems relevant just now, and if the infrastructure had >been in place for this election, it could have saved us a >heck of a lot of trouble. > >An Election Protocol: Or, a way for people in voting societies to >exercise their franchise without stirring themselves to get down to >the polls or, for that matter, leaving their computer. > >1) Alice the voter creates twenty sets of ballots. Each set of > >2) Alice now blinds all the ballot sets with different blinding >3) Bob checks the digital signature, checks to make sure he hasn't > >4) Alice responds by sending Bob the blinding factors for the > >5) Bob unblinds the nineteen sets of ballots, making sure that > >6) Alice unblinds the ballot set while preserving Bob's signature. > >7) Bob decrypts the ballot, checks his own signature to make sure > >8) When the election is over, Bob publishes the ballots and the (I've left out the details, but kept the first line of each of the steps.) The problems with these protocols are obvious to all who have looked at these things over the years: * most voters, at least 99% of them, will not understand or trust or bother with the protocols * the steps will of course all be automated into some WindowsMe or Mac client called "MyVote." This package will itself not be trusted by most people. * the large fraction of people who are not computer literate, or who don't own a PC, etc. will have to use someone else's PC or terminal. This then raises all the usual issues about their blinding numbers, passphrases, keystrokes, etc., being captured or manipulated by someone else. Physical ballot voting has its problems, but at least people _understand_ the concept of marking a ballot, as opposed to "blinding the exponent of their elliptic curve function and then solving the discrete log problem for an n-out-of-m multi-round tournament." Further, people can _watch_ their ballots going into a voting box, a "mix." I know I watch my ballot going in. And while it is _possible_ for secret cameras to be videotaping my choices, or for DNA from my fingers being able to "mark" my ballot, I understand from basic economic and ontologic issues that these measures are very unlikely. This assurance doesn't exist with the protocol described above. Some folks will think their protocol failed, some will think there is a "backdoor" for seeing how they voted, some will think their are not adequate methods for auditing or double-checking the protocols. I would not trust such a system, or be willing to take night school classes in crypto and higher math in order to begin to understand the system...so imagine what other folks will think. It won't happen in our lifetimes. It may happen in European nations, but only because the average citizen does what he is told to do more so than American paranoids and individualists will do. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Looking for statistically-unlikely surges in absentee ballots
I just heard Karen Hughes of the Bush Campaign express concern about the status of absentee ballots being mailed AFTER the outcome of the election was shown to be so close. In particular, after the legal cut-off date. This fits with what I just posted about concerns that Florida dual-citizenship residents of Israel, or tourists in Israel, sending in absentee ballots they had neglected to send in by the cut-off date. (Or, more ominously, ZOG conveniently postmarking them to match the law in Florida.) [By the way, I think in my ZOG piece I mentioned Palm Beach County. This is not the point, as the closeness of the vote is Florida-wide. This is what I meant to say.] The thing to look for is a _surge_ in ballots arriving in Florida absentee ballots as compared to other states. While other states may also have some degree of "after the fact absentee ballots," the incentives are higher in a razor-thin state like Florida. A surge of absentee ballots arriving two or three days after the controversy became obvious would be compelling evidence to justify further investigation. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Late-postmarked ballots from ZOG-occupied Palestine
Now we hear of calls urging dual-citizenship residents of ZOG-occupied Palestine to send in absentee ballots to Florida, especially for the estimated 400 dual-citizenship, or visiting tourists, from Palm Beach County. The claim is that if they can "prove" they were unable to have them postmarked by the time polls closed in Florida, due to the violence or whatever, that maybe they will still be allowed in. (And I wouldn't put it past the ZOG to rig the postmarks and then put the ballots on a fast jet to Florida.) According to a Reuters story, " Friday November 10 12:52 PM ET U.S. Absentee Voters in Mideast 'Unknown Quantity' By Danielle Haas JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Absentee voters living in Israel and Palestinian territories could influence the outcome of the razor-edge U.S. presidential election but are unlikely to be able to vote late, a U.S. embassy official said on Friday. Some analysts had speculated that voters registered in Florida but living in Israel and Palestinian-ruled areas could still send in ballot papers if they proved they were unable to postmark them by the November 7 deadline. " -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Rants and sour grapes ...
At 7:08 PM + 11/10/00, Gil Hamilton wrote: >Ernest Hua writes: >>It is abundantly clear to me that much of the ranting going on here >>on this list is at least 50% sour grapes. >> >>Not to pick on Tim, but he just seems like a convenient example; it >>is clear in Tim's mind that he does not want the possibility of >>Gore being the next president. He may have some procedural reasons >>to back this rant up, but he definitely does not like Gore. > >You arrogant pinhead. It is you who have been whining that these >poor dimwitted voters in Palm Beach County must be allowed to vote >again; after all, "the voters should get what they want." > >In any case, if they did hold a revote in Palm Beach County, what >happens after that? What if Bush is still ahead and there are more >spoiled ballots? What if Gore is ahead, but there are spoiled >ballots? Or, is the objective to just allow them to re-vote again >and again until you and Gore get the outcome you're looking for? There will be blood in the streets if a "do over" is allowed in Palm Beach County. Frankly, were such a "do over" ordered, I have no doubt that Gore would pick up the extra 300 or so votes he needs to beat Bush. I outlined the basic reasons a day or two ago in my "Causality and Close Elections" piece. It's why we all vote at nominally the same time. In fact, the margin for a "new victory" would likely be much more than 300 votes. To Ernest Hua, Pinhead, this would be "the will of the people." As I've said, I sort of hope this happens. It would make for exciting news. And blood in the streets. Folks like me would be calling for the trial and execution of Al Gore and his thousands of lackeys. That would be sort of fun. Meanwhile, the chaos and paralysis is also useful. > >And what about other states? There were spoiled ballots in every >state and probably every precinct, and I have no doubt there was >some idiot confused by the ballot in every such case. What is the >threshold at which we allow that state or precinct to vote over >again? Re-votes, or "do overs," are inherently unfair in the most basic sense. This is why they are so rare, so _fucking_ rare. Even in cases in Miami where actual fraud was found, the courts did not order a re-vote. Rather, they tossed out entire blocs of ballots which were thought to have been tainted. There is no evidence of substantial fraud in the Palm Beach County matter, as we've discussed ad nauseum (ballots approved in advance, ballots published, no disputes, ballots used in '96 election, number of spoiled ballots comparable to number in '96, etc.). Even if there _were_, the remedy would likely be to discard all of the Palm Beach County votes before there would ever be a re-vote. (And the 150,000 voters, IIRC, who got it "right," who didn't drool on their ballots or mark mulitple choices, would be justified in then complaining that _they_ were being penalized for having carefully looked at the ballot!) > >I'm beginning to think Tim is right: The fuse on this powder keg >is lit. The NAACP and its ilk, along with Gore partisans like you, >will never accept the outcome of this election. Which is one reason I sort of hope the hundreds of lawyers sent down to Florida by the Gore Team succeed in throwing the election to Gore. > > >Better stock up on ammo, folks. (Maybe Y2K was just a few months >late.) > Got that one covered. I don't expect hordes in the countryside, but we could see some the Welfare Mutants and Inner City Maggots rioting, looting, and shitting in their own nests. Most of South-Central LA remains boarded up and economically wasted, which I think is poetic justice. Let the Democrat "maggots and faggots" deal with Jesse Jackson's promised race war. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Close Elections and Causality
At 3:17 PM +0200 11/10/00, Sampo A Syreeni wrote: >On Thu, 9 Nov 2000, Tim May wrote: > >>In close elections, as in close sports games, as in the golf example, >>there will be many events which are later claimed to be "hinge >>points," or forks. > >Which is pretty much caused by the count being seen as an advancing 'race' >with a definite order. I've never understood what the hell is a direct >broadcast all about when all the votes have already been cast. Yes, this is precisely the key. The issue of which voting areas "pushed the victor over the top" or "caused" his victory are artifacts of the order in which the vote was counted. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Democrats are arguing for "statistical sampling voting"
At 8:55 PM -0500 11/9/00, Declan McCullagh wrote: >I suggest that we find one county for each state that we believe to be >representative, let them vote, and then extrapolate from their results >and assign electors accordingly. > >Or perhaps one household per state. I volunteer Tim and his cats to to >represent California. I know the way Nietzsche would vote, at least. > I put a ballot in front of him, consisting of three open cans of cat food: Gore: O O : Buchanan Bush: O He spoiled his ballot by eating out of more than one can, though, so he has now brought in Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Tawana Brawley, and Morris the Cat to argue that he was confused and should be given a "do over." --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Where is Jim Bell?
At 8:50 AM -0800 11/9/00, A. Melon wrote: >Declan; >Why haven't you found out yet what happened to Jim Bell? Certainly you >could ask questions of Portland PD, whatever, or his mom, find out what >they've done with him. >This is certainly a newsworthy item. Squelching free speech by terrorizing >dissedents is what it's all about. And where is John Young? His last post I can find was on 11/2. Nothing since about the time the Bell raid happened. (And his posting statistics were fairly uniform prior to this: a post or two every day, with very few long gaps.) I was only half-joking that maybe Bell's and Young's work on tracing down those CIA safe houses in Bend, Oregon were getting him in trouble. John, say it ain't so. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Democrats are arguing for "statistical sampling voting"
Democrat spinners are now talking up the idea of using "statistical sampling" to assign some fraction of the spoiled ballots to Al Gore. Not a surprise, given that it was the Democrats who wanted to augment the "direct count" of the U.S. Census with "statistical fudge factors." I never thought I'd hear this bizarre notion extended to the vote, though! --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
The Butterfly Effect
Devil's Dictionary, 2005 edition: "Butterfly Effect: Wherein the use of a "butterfly ballot" having candidates listed on either side of a central column was claimed to have confused some elderly Jewish voters in Palm County, Florida and thus was used by lawyers as an excuse to take full control of the American election process." --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
RE: Close Elections and Causality
At 9:43 AM -0800 11/9/00, Ernest Hua wrote: >Thanks Tim. (First, I genuinely appreciate the >specificity. Now we can discuss just where we >disagree.) > >Given your points, one would have to argue that >the proper election would have to be extremely >simultaneous (e.g. everyone votes within 1 hour >or whatever will most likely beat any realistic >attempt to predict voter results before the vote >is actually finished). > >I can see your point. However, it ain't gonna >happen precisely because people have normal life >concerns that truly are 24x7 and simply cannot >work around them. (e.g. kids, certain kinds of >jobs, etc ...). "Designing fairer elections" has very little to do with my points, about causality, re-dos, and re-votes. I can think of various improvements to the election process, such as operating the polls for a 15 hour period, nationwide, simultaneously. Whatever. This is a matter for those involved in designing elections, not at all related to this business of whether some particular polling site should get a "do-over." I urge you to get involved in the Election Commission in your state and to make your suggestions for future elections. > >A reasonable level of flexibility is required. >"Reasonable" appears to mean opening polls for >most of the day, but I would hate to have some >faceless fed tell me what reasonable is. The voting periods are set by the states, not the Feds. You, ironically, seem to be arguing for more of a role for the Feds, not less of a role. > >Same thing here. The goal is to give people a >chance to vote. Otherwise, national elections >should have national rules, according to your >reasoning. States should not be allowed to set >up their own mechanisms to vote on national >elections. See what I mean? How do you square your "I would hate to have some faceless fed tell me what reasonable is" with "states should not be allowed to set up their own mechanisms..." point? I really need to give up on you. You blather, you ramble, you contradict yourself, you lack a consistent point of view, you probably would have voted for Buchanan and then claimed you wanted a do-over. > >So on the issue of extending hours: > >If each district, county, township, neighborhood >should decide to open the polls LONGER, I can't >see a problem with that. If they close it >earlier, it's probably not a problem either >unless someone felt they did not have a chance >to get to the polls. You fail to grasp the essential point: the hours must not be changed once they have been established. It is utterly wrong to close the polls _early_. Your point "it's probably not a problem either someone felt..." is utterly vacuous. It is also utterly wrong to keep the pollling places open longer. Especially when a political calculation is made that more Democrats appear to be straggling, as was the calculation in St. Louis on Tuesday. That you don't get this point, about consistent rules, does not surprise me at all. > >On the issue of re-voting: > >The causality and the hinge issues are irrelevant >if ANY state, county, district, whatever can go >to a judge and argue (not demand arbitrarily) for >re-vote. No, it is not irrelevant. It would give the courts the power to determine elections and would likely put an end to our system of government. Perhaps we should adopt your suggestion. Let the lawyers take over the election process just as they have taken over most things. >Lots of places here and abroad have the concept >of run-off elections for precisely the same >reasons: > >Let's see what the voters really want. > We did just this--we had the election. Do-overs are not allowed. Fools like you just don't get it. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Reporting weirdness: Hagelin vs. Browne
On CNN I watched the election results coming in. They always listed four candidates: Bush, Gore, Nader, and Hagelin. The usual format was Bush/Gore on the "crawl" at the bottom of the screen and then a second page with the crawl having Nader/Hagelin. Sometimes Buchanan was listed. It sure looked like Hagelin was doing better than Browne, the Libertarian Party candidate. Well, here's what the "Washington Post" is reporting as the nearly final tally for the lesser candidates: Harry Browne (Lib.) 0 373,109 0 Howard Phillips (CST) 0 98,224 0 John Hagelin (NLP) 0 87,914 0 James Harris (SWP) 0 11,190 0 L. Neil Smith (Lib.)0 5,181 0 Monica Moorehead (WW) 0 4,245 0 David McReynolds (Soc.) 0 4,097 0 I guess it was "natural law" that caused CNN (and perhaps other networks) to report on Hagelin over Browne. The Libertarian Party should request a "Do-over!" like the Palm Beach Jews are now demanding. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Close Elections and Causality
ir original votes (And of course there would be no way of knowing if someone had changed their vote, for obvious reasons that ballots are not linkable to the voter.) * and there are the points about the ballot raised earlier: the ballot had been used before, there were no legal challenges made, the voting commission was led by a Democrat who had approved the ballot, the ballot was published in newspapers, etc. In summary, close elections and close sports games often seemingly depend on minor factors. These minor factors are, paradoxically and incorrectly, ascribed to be the "causes" of later events. Lastly, allowing a re-vote when the hinge points have already been identified is a serious distortion of the process. Rules are rules. The time to object is beforehand. Unless extremely serious voter fraud is found, results should not be thrown out when those results are in accordance with the rules. In no cases should a re-vote of a "hinge county" be allowed for less-than-massive-fraud reasons. And, of course, Palm County will _not_ be given a second chance to vote in this election. I guarantee it. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Phil Zimmerman Profiled
At 2:01 AM -0500 11/9/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >At Wed, 8 Nov 2000 22:29:57 -0800, "James D. Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >wrote: > >>Meet Phil Zimmermann, creator of the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) >>encryption suite and one of the world's best-known cryptographers. > >Why was this article about encryption posted on this US presidential elektion >discussion list? > >What's that you say? You're kidding! Really? You mean this is an encryption >discussion list? Nah, I still don't believe it. If you want to discuss crypto, you know where the keys are on your keyboard. Looking over the archives, I don't see any such articles from you. All I see from you is a mention of an article in the Hoosier Times, having nothing to do with crypto. So, fuck off. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
RE: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
At 8:57 PM -0800 11/8/00, Ernest Hua wrote: > > There cannot be a re-vote of the County, or even of the entire State, >> as this would distort the forces acting on the electorate in a way >> never seen before. The Palm County voters would know _they_ would be >> electing the next president. Billions of dollars would be spent >> trying to buy each and every voter. > >"distort the forces ..." Lord! No! Don't let them do that! > >Geez, Tim. What happened to personal responsibility? Who gives two >bits what "forces" will be upon them. They will ultimately still >have to cast a vote which they were casting just days earlier. Who >cares if idiots spend billions to sway a few thousand votes. That's >THEIR problem. It's free speech, as you have claimed in the past. You're a complete idiot if you don't understand this point. I made my points, briefly, above. This would not be a matter of the same voters simply recasting their same ballots. Think about it. (I'm not convinced you can, Ernest. In reading hundreds of your posts I have concluded that you're just part of Vinge's "Slow Zone.") --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
At 10:51 PM -0500 11/8/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >The ballot layout was illegal and resulted >in a statistically verifiable set of erroneous >votes for Bucanun. This is particularly galling >to the voting victims, since many are Jewish. The ballot form was used in past elections, CNN reported today. The ballot was published in newspapers, to let people familiarize themselves with its form. And the head of the voting commission, who approved the ballot's final form, is a Democrat. Ballots are often of different forms. Sometimes a mechanical punch is used, sometimes a Number 2 pencil, sometimes a pen. There cannot be a re-vote of the County, or even of the entire State, as this would distort the forces acting on the electorate in a way never seen before. The Palm County voters would know _they_ would be electing the next president. Billions of dollars would be spent trying to buy each and every voter. And there is no precedent for using "statistics" by Democrat consultants to propose that votes be Buchanan be assigned to Gore. So Gore won't get those votes, and there won't be a County-wide revote. (If there is, I'll help in rigging the dynamite truck .) --Timothy McMay -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Democrats in Florida are discovering "padlocked boxes"
CNN is reporting that teachers arriving at a pre-school in a heavily Democrat region of Miami/Dade found a "padlocked box" in their classroom. The pre-school had been used as a polling place. They "shook the box" and it "appeared to be full." So, these votes bought with welfare money will probably go for Gore. The Dems are also claiming that some or all of Buchanan's votes should be allocated to Gore, as many people who wanted to vote for Gore are claiming, now, that they must have accidentally punched the hole to the right of Gore's name instead of the hole to the _left_ of Gore's name. I expect Al Gore will "find" the extra votes he needs. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Courts interfering with election
I thought I was jaded, but this is too much even for me to believe. A judge in St. Louis has ordered the polls kept open later, until 10 pm local time. The effect will be to let more inner city, Democrat-leaning voters vote. The rural and suburban polling places will close at the normal times. Whew. Democrats are elated that more of their supporters will be able to vote in the extra hours. A similar measure was turned down in another state (Kansas?). Democrats in other urban areas are hustling to see if they can get their own bought judges involved in the process. A stunning theft of the election. If these "late Democrats" turn out to be the margin of victory, this will energize the anger of the Republicans. Amazing. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Wired News Senate scorecard: Democrats beat Republicans
At 9:55 AM -0500 11/6/00, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Just in time for Tuesday's election, Wired News has compiled a tech >scorecard for the U.S. Senate. Showing the foolishness of converting a more nuanced, vector form of voting records into a simplistic, scalar form. Consider some of these questions: > >#4: A vote to require federal candidates to disclose contributions >online within 24 hours. (Yes is 1) Supporters of liberty don't like "campaign disclosure" laws at all, let alone "online disclosure." Consider the equally onerous violation of the First Amendment: "Those writing articles must disclose online anyone with whom they have had financial relationships over the past 5 years." A clear violation of the First, right? So is any limit on who I support financially, who I give money to, how candidates raise money, etc. > >#8: A vote to create an information-technology-training tax credit. >(Yes is 1) Just another special interest tax loophole. Those interested in liberty know that these loopholes distort the free market. The usual result of such "training credits" is a series of mostly-bogus "Learn to Operate Keypunch Machines at the Control Data Institute!!" radio ads for fly-by-night schools in areas very far from technology centers. Getting the training subsidies is what matters. In these cases, I would argue strongly that a "No is 1." No wonder the Dems did so well. Again, the real problem is trying to collapse multiple issues into a simple-minded "technology score." At least the Nolan Chart understands that at least two dimensions are needed. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Connie Chung fucks up & things are not as they seem.A goodexample of the tremen
At 10:04 AM -0600 11/6/00, Neil Johnson wrote: >I think you must be mistaking "Wired" for the "Weekly World News". > >You know I live about 20-30 miles from a large government/corporate >installation (the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in South Eastern Iowa). Was >opened in the early 1900's. Thousands of acres, 100's of miles of Railroad, >Bunkers, Warehouses, High Security, built atomic bombs in the 50's and 60's. >It doesn't even show up on most maps. > Sounds much like the fictional setting for the "Newark Incident" in John Gilstrap's "At Any Cost." In that novel, a very large former weapons plant in Arkansas is the site of some old weapons bunkers leaking nerve gases and whatnot. Rail lines, "mounds" covering the bunkers are covered with trees which have grown up over the years since the plant was decommissioned, etc. I don't know if there was such a plan in Arkansas as well as in Iowa, or whether Gilstrap simply changed a few names and sites to protect the guilty. A good read, though, as was his earlier thriller, "Nathan's Run." --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Here's an interesting twist on gun control ...
At 10:08 PM -0800 11/5/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: >On Sun, 5 Nov 2000, Peter Capelli/Raleigh/Contr/IBM wrote: > >> Yes, while it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to >>pass this law, how could it be unconstitutional as a local or state >>statute? Something similar to requiring X number of smoke detectors per >>square foot. > > >An interesting exercise is to ask where the government (ANY branch of >government) gets the authority to require me to put smoke detectors >in my home. If my house burns down, that's my tough toenails, right? In California, smoke detectors for homes are required AS PART OF A SALE, but not before or after. That is, there is no requirement placed on an ordinary homeowner. As usual, rules for landlords are much different. Enforcement being through the usual method of renters suing for large sums because the landlord let the $7.99 smoke detector run low on battery power. On the point of a law requiring guns, I just can't think of anything the law requires me to have in my house. As it should be. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Connie Chung fucks up & things are not as they seem.A good example of the tremen
At 4:06 PM -0800 11/5/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: >On Sat, 4 Nov 2000, Gary Jeffers wrote: > >>My fellow Cypherpunks, The following is interesting. >> >>On a live call-in TV talk show some two years ago, Ms. Chung responded with >>a bit too much candor to a question as to what actually gets reported >>publicly by the major news media, given the great number of stories and >>items which come from the numerous sources of "raw" information. How are the >>stories which get the attention of the media chosen and by whom? >> >>Connie Chung replied to the effect that it wasn't too hard to decide what >>stories get aired--they just checked with Washington D.C. to see what had >>been cleared for publication by the government. > >What network? What show? What date? Anybody ever see this? >Anybody own a tape of it happening? > I heard the tapes were seized by the Gubment. Maury Povich did a story on this, called "My wife was kidnapped by the Fedz and sent to to a political re-education camp," but nobody took him seriously. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Roots servers on rise - ICANN's golden egg cracking (fwd)
At 7:57 PM -0500 11/5/00, !dr.baptista wrote: >-- Forwarded message -- >Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2000 18:34:04 -0500 (EST) >From: !Dr. Joe Baptista <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], > NCDNHC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Roots servers on rise - ICANN's golden egg cracking > > >Last year alternate roots supported 0.3% of internet traffic. > >This year alternate roots are supporting 5.5% of internet traffic. > >The BIND study this year to date has ennumerated 60,513 dns (15% of >399,937 dns) of which 3,331 report they are using non-USG roots. > >In my opinion - this is significant. And it puts a whole new twist on the >song - what a difference a day makes. > This is indeed great news! I don't follow DNS/ICANN issues much, but it seems apparent that ICANN's heavy-handed, US-centric, politically correct, imperialist policies have backfired. Perhaps we should be _thanking_ Esther for this sabotage rather than criticizing her! --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Here's an interesting twist on gun control ...
At 7:35 PM -0500 11/5/00, Peter Capelli/Raleigh/Contr/IBM wrote:
> Yes, while it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to
>pass this law, how could it be unconstitutional as a local or state
>statute? Something similar to requiring X number of smoke detectors per
>square foot.
While I don't agree that the 14th Amendment ("equal protection...")
was needed, this is the basis for reminding states that they may not
pass laws which are unconstitutional.
Thus, Oregon may not pass a law banning Mormonism, even though the C.
says "Congress shall make no law..."
Further, every state agreed to uphold the U.S. Constitution upon
entry (and perhaps as a condition of entry, though I'm not a C.
expert on this) to the Union.
It won't fly to say that while Congress may not ban guns, or require
guns, that states and local jurisdictions are free to do thusly.
As for smoke detectors, they fall in the same category as seat belts,
helmets, and other such intrusions: unconstitutional, a "taking."
While they may be _good ideas_, it is not the business of government
to enter our homes in this way.
Smoke detectors and wiring standards are, however, a long way away
from banning guns, or requiring guns. Let's not get sidetracked into
chestnuts like "If libertarians don't want government, how do roads
get built?" There _are_ answers, but they require laying some
groundwork.
The point I was making is that those who think they can outsmart the
gun banners by _requiring_ guns are giving ammunition to the banners.
And are violating the Constitution.
>Additionally, it does not mention a paperwork requirement for
>not owning a gun.
One becomes a violator of the law by not having a gun. One could
mount a defense based on the C. issues, or the C.O. issues. This is
what I meant by "paperwork."
Well, we don't _need_ to justify to anyone why we don't have a
television, or telephone, or computer, or rifle, or encyclopedia, or
anything else "required" by some law.
Think about it.
>
> While I admit it seems like a foolish law (akin to requiring a citizen
>to vote), I hardly see how it would require 'a killing'. Also, given their
>views, killing them may not be as easy as others who are unarmed. ;-)
I make the point about "x needs killing" to help lay the moral
groundwork. Just as preachers had been saying "abortion clinics are a
scourge and should be bombed," and bombings then started, it helps if
people start to think in terms of hundreds of thousands of rights
violators having earned killing, bombing, and nerve gassing.
Doesn't mean I plan to do it myself, any more than the preachers
saying that killing abortionists is a moral act planned to do it
themselves. It's about the moral issues. And changing the moral
climate.
Read "Unintended Consequences," by John Ross, for a fuller
explication of this point.
Crypto anarchy doesn't just mean erosion of government, it provides
the means to carry the war for liberty into the belly of the beast.
Unlike many, I've never hidden this basic point. Think about it.
If this scares off some weak sisters, good.
--Tim May
--
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Here's an interesting twist on gun control ...
At 3:37 PM -0500 11/5/00, Peter Capelli/Raleigh/Contr/IBM wrote: >http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/11/05/mandatory.guns.ap/index.html > > > > Utah town requires all households to own gun > > November 5, 2000 > Web posted at: 11:22 AM EST (1622 GMT) > > VIRGIN, Utah (AP) -- This tiny southern Utah town >has enacted an ordinance > requiring a gun and ammunition in every home for >residents' self-defense. > > Most of Virgin's 350 residents already own >firearms, so the initiative has lots of > support, Mayor Jay Lee said. > > Residents had expressed fear that their Second >Amendment right to bear arms > was under fire, so the town council modeled a >similar measure passed by a > Georgia city about 12 years ago. > > The mentally ill, convicted felons, conscientious >objectors and people who > cannot afford to own a gun are exempt. This has been done before. A town in Georgia, one in Ohio or Illinois, as I recall. t is just as unconstitutional to _require_ a gun as it is to _ban_ guns. The crap about "conscientious objector" is just that, crap. I shouldn't have to fill out some bullshit form to say I have conscientious objections to having a gun in my house. Government may no more require a gun in a house than it may require a television, or a telephone, or a toothbrush. Yes, I know the law is pure fluff, and hence is moot, a nullity, as they say. But the principle of _requiring_ a gun is just as foolish as the notion of banning guns. Frankly, those who pass such laws need killing just as much as the tens of thousands who are banning guns need killing. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
An Introduction to Complexity, Hamiltonian Cycles, and ZeroKnowledge Proofs--Part 1
There may be many algorithms which give "pretty good" results. Dividing the cities into regions and optimizing each one, then stitching the results together works pretty well. (Used in a lot of algorithms, developed at Los Alamos for bomb designs...the Metropolis algorithm, for example.). Simulated annealing works pretty well. And so on. But these are all just approximations, not actual solutions. Good enough for engineering, and evolution (which is why a rabbit trying to get from his burrow to a food source to another food source doesn't die of starvation while he's trying to solve the Travelling Rabbit Problem exactly). One of the characteristics of this kind of problem is that there is often/usually no way to really measure "convergence on a solution." In a maze, for example, as one travels down various maze passages one may know that the goal is "just a few meters away," but this does little good: one may have to backtrack, or undo, ALL moves all the way back to the beginning of the maze search to take another branch point! "Close doesn't count." (The similarities with most modern crypto should be getting obvious. Most modern crypto only falls to "brute force" -- exhaustive search, trying all the paths, trying to factor a modulus, etc. There is no "getting closer" in most modern ciphers.) HAMILTONIAN PATH PROBLEM Find a path or cycle on a graph which passes through each node once and only once. (Or demonstrate whether any such cycle exists, a slightly different form.) I said I would also use the Hamiltonian Path Problem, HPP. This one is worth spending an hour or two drawing pictures and trying to find clever solutions. It will make the ideas much clearer, I think. And will also lead to a good understanding of "zero knowledge proofs" and the applications of them to things like pass phrases and security systems which don't leak information to wiretappers or even to the system being accessed! (Quite a feat, that.) OK, go back to those 10 cities in Europe. As we know, some of those cities have direct rail connections to other of the cities, some don't. Berlin and Paris are connected (ignore trivial issues of their perhaps being intermediate cities and towns...). Madrid and London are not connected directly by rail lines. The HPP is to take a graph, the set of cities and the links between them, and find a path or cycle which passes through each node (city) once and only once. And returns to the starting node. For example, one such path might look like: Rome to Marseilles to Madrid to Geneva to Warsaw to Berlin to Hannover to Amsterdam to Paris to London...whoops, London is only connected to Paris, so we're stuck in London. (This isn't the essence of a HPP, and one could stipulate that all cities must be connected to at least two other cities.) Let's throw London out and only consider N cities with connections to at least two other cities. How many possible paths need to be calculated depends on the number of interconnections. Some time spent with a pencil and paper will be invaluable. As the number of cities increases, the number of paths to consider goes up roughly as N! (N factorial, as above with the TSP). This is not polynomial in the number of cities. (Hence, for newcomers, one starts to get the idea of "nonpolynomial time," though there are some nuances and quibbles to deal with.) However, suppose someone presented a purported Hamiltonian cycle for a graph? That is, a claimed path through the N cities that passed through each city once and only once? This could be verified in practically no time, just by eyeballing the purported cycle. And thus one gets at the idea of an "oracle," a machine or god which can "guess" the solution. (Hence the idea behind "nondeterministic polynomial time." Again, there are nuances and formal issues, but this is the general idea.) (The intuition goes like this: For a large graph, of, say, 100 cities, the calculations required to compute the O (100!) paths would be vastly greater than all the computers that will ever be built could ever do in a billion universes, blah blah. If someone presents a solution, they must have "oracular" powers. Well, not really, as we shall see.) ZERO KNOWLEDGE--APPLYING THIS TO PASS PHRASES "I am Tim May and I present my proof of this: I know a Hamiltonian cycle for this particular graph which is my signature graph." So I present a graph with 100 cities on it, linked in various ways, and show a Hamiltonian cycle. Proof. Except that now I've given this proof to anyone watching, including the system or person I just showed the proof to. Is there a way to prove beyond any doubt that I know the Hamiltonian cycle without actually revealing it. There is. Wow. Trippy stuff. I'll wait a day or tw
Re: RISKS: New Jersey shuts down E-ZPass statement site after security breached
At 7:35 PM -0800 11/3/00, Bill Stewart wrote: >the following pleasant article on privacy was on RISKS. > >Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 11:19:44 -0400 (EDT) >From: danny burstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: EZ-Pass discovers risk of sending URLs instead of actual text > >TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A security breach has forced New Jersey >officials to temporarily shut down a service that allows E-ZPass users >to get monthly statements via e-mail. > >Reagoso said Monday that it wasn't hard to break into the system. An act which is now ipso facto illegal under the "Illegal to Break, Analyze, or Reverse-Engineer a Security Program or System Act of 2000." "It's to help protect the children." --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
At 11:36 AM -0800 11/3/00, Bill Stewart wrote: (about AT&T knowingly supporting Spam sites) > >Fortunately, somebody got this to the right people at AT&T; >otherwise I was going to have to contact the Sales VP (Hovancak) >whose name was on the contract and ask him to find the sales rep >who got fast-talked into signing that contract. >AT&T's privacy policies mean that we can't reveal information on >our customers' networks, so it's the PR folks' problem >to tell you that we've learned the error of our ways, Oh, I doubt AT&T has "learned the error of its ways." This is just their spin control. Like Esther Dyson's spin control..."I won't let it happen again." Until, of course, the next mass mailing to her "Dear Friends" goes out. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Nader
At 9:40 PM -0800 11/2/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: >On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, Tim May wrote: > >>>no matter how good you are. You can get rich enough to live off your >>>investments, sure -- but reaching the billionaire league is a multi- >>>generational project. >> >>This is not true. Most billionaires in the United States did it in a >>single generation. On the Fortune list of billionaires, most made the >>money by starting companies. Only a handful are heirs. > >Most of them come from well-to-do families rather than filthy >rich families, that's true. But few or none come from blue >collar or really poor families. Of three billionaires I can think of off-hand, all came from poor families. For example, Gordon Moore of Intel. Grew up in a fishing village, Pescadero, halfway between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Modest means. (And his partner in forming Intel, Bob Noyce, now deceased, grew up on a farm in Iowa.) For example, Larry Ellison of Oracle. Grew up dirt poor in the midwest (Chicago, I believe, or some city similar to Chicago). These are two out of the top 5. Add to this Jim Bidzos, a near-billionaire from his Verisign holdings alone. Poor, enlisted in Marines, etc. And there's the guy who hired me into Intel in 1974, a poor kid from the poor side of the tracks, name of Craig Barrett. Now CEO of Intel and worth several hundred millions. (Oh, and Andy Grove, Hungarian refugee, arriving penniless in 1956-7.) And look to Warren Buffet, Sam Walton, and a slew of others. I'd say your "few or none" point has been decisively disproved by example. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Nader
At 10:43 AM -0800 11/2/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: > >Most of these folks have a perception that they've been locked out >of doing well -- if your parents couldn't afford a good school, or >if they can't afford *any* school and you put yourself through, it >colors your opportunities for at least the first six or eight years >of your professional career. Not the crowd I mentioned, ironically. This was at the University of Wisconsin campus at Madison. Mostly well-off kids, at a rich campus. > >If you're going to think in terms of "doing well," in terms of skill >and dedication and saving and investment making you into one of the >upper upper-crust in this culture, you aren't thinking of individuals, >really. You really have to think of several *generations* of a >family building and passing on wealth and opportunity to the next >generation. It works for individuals too, but it's much harder to >do and in a single lifetime the odds against rising from an illiterate >family with no savings to being one of the super-rich are negligible >no matter how good you are. You can get rich enough to live off your >investments, sure -- but reaching the billionaire league is a multi- >generational project. This is not true. Most billionaires in the United States did it in a single generation. On the Fortune list of billionaires, most made the money by starting companies. Only a handful are heirs. I won't bother citing the usual figures on how heirs tend to spend down the inheritance, not increase it, at least not any faster than ordinary T-bill rates would predict. > >I've struggled with this one myself. My folks were hillbillies. So >I started with just about nothing, myself. However, I had opportunities, >and I took them and did fairly well with them. Public schools. Merit >scholarships to start the college career. The ability to work two jobs >while taking classes to finish it. Mostly a cultural thing. It's very common for Asian ancestry persons in the U.S. to work extremely hard, to live with other Asians in very crowded houses and apartments, to save most of what is earned, to loyally support and lend money to their circle of friends and family, and then to start some small business. With hard work, they often prosper. By contrast, it is very common for African ancestry persons in the U.S. to complain that Whitey hasn't given them enough money, that they are owed a good job, to smoke crack cocaine, and to father many illegitimate children. Hence the statistics of Asians vs. Africans on the welfare rolls. These are cultural, not racial, issues. Sad, but true. > >jobs. These are real opportunities, though most of them aren't of the >magnitude that fate granted to Bill Gates and his ilk. I'm on track >to retire comfortably -- at my current pace, if I can hold it, I will >be a millionaire within the next five years. But I'm 37 years old and >it has taken me this long to overcome where I started. I won't get into comparing our situations, but I believe the key ingredient is work, saving, investment, a positive outlook for the future, and more work. It worked for me, no thanks to government and taxation. BTW, most of the younger folks I know in software have no college degree. > >I hope we find a way to make such things into palatable business >propositions and privatize them; I'd hate to see them die with >governments. Nothing wrong with indentured servitude. You can read some pieces I wrote about this many years ago, circa '93-94. The archives should have them. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Nader
At 9:30 AM -0800 11/2/00, Greg Broiles wrote: >On Thu, Nov 02, 2000 at 08:51:03AM -0800, Tim May wrote: >> Nader is getting a late start in the enthusiasm stakes, but it could >> be that he'll really surge. A lot of folks are mired deeply in what >> Nietzsche called "resentiment." They just don't like it when other >> people have done well by investing instead of by drinking beer for >> the past 20 years, and they want the successful people taken down a >> notch or two. > >Ironically, Nader himself is a millionaire, apparently as a result >of the investments he's made over the past 20-30 years and his >spendthrift lifestyle. Good for him - but it makes me wonder where >he'd draw the line between "wealth that's deserved" and "wealth that's >not deserved." Yep, I heard that he has a multimilllionaire position just in Cisco alone. As you said, good for him. (Frankly, anyone who was in the working force in the late 50s, early 60s, as Nader was, and who lived parsimoniously in a rooming house for all those years had BETTER be a multimillionaire!) As for how he'll draw the line, I'm sure he'll do as other liberals do: support confiscatory income taxes. As the Kennedy clan does. (Of course, the Kennedy clan was careful to have most of its bootlegging money from Old Joe placed in trusts and suchlike.) Many extremely wealthy liberals are all too willing to support wealth confiscation. "I'm willing to have half of my $300 million taken for a good cause, so let's get going and build a communitarian fair society!" --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Nader
At 11:00 AM -0500 11/2/00, Declan McCullagh wrote: >In a 10/14 survey, Gore was leading California by 4 points: >http://www.portraitofamerica.com/html/poll-1214.html > >I suspect with Nader's surge, this lead has narrowed. > I saw a deliriously enthusiastic crowd of supporters for Nader's appearance last night on the Chris Matthews MSNBC show "Hardball." The hall was packed with his supporters, no doubt. Still, the enthusiasm was real, and stronger than what I've seen for Gush or Bore. The audience was howling and cheering as Nader called for populist/communist measures like confiscating the wealth of the rich, muzzling the speech of businessmen, and regulating businesses at all levels. "Does Bill Gates really deserve to have more total net worth than the combined assets of the bottom 40% of our country?!" Whoops and howls. One wonders if Bill Gates will rethink the wisdom of helping to fund MSNBC! Nader is getting a late start in the enthusiasm stakes, but it could be that he'll really surge. A lot of folks are mired deeply in what Nietzsche called "resentiment." They just don't like it when other people have done well by investing instead of by drinking beer for the past 20 years, and they want the successful people taken down a notch or two. Should be exciting to see what happens. If Nader succeeds in taking enough votes from Gore for Bush to win, the Dems may move further to the left in the _next_ election. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re:
At 11:00 AM +0400 11/2/00, ibnhamed wrote: >please sent me some sampels !!!BOMBS!!! Anarchist Black Cross Backyard Ballistics Bombs and Pranks Loaded Explosions Match Head Bomb Overthrow.com -- Ab Igne Ignem -- Former Home of the Utopian Anarchist Party Pipe Bomb and Fire Bomb Designs Pipe Bombs etc on Overthrow.com Pipebombs, explosives, bombs, c-4, anarchist cookbook, and other crap. SeMTeXs SeCReTs Terrorist's Handbook Uploaded - EXPLOSIONS - Blowing Things Up -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
RE: California bars free speech of those cutting deals on votes
At 1:14 PM -0500 11/1/00, Trei, Peter wrote: > > Bill Stewart[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > > Massachusetts looks like the kind of state that has >> more pot smokers than registered Republicans. >> Somebody ought to be able to use that >> >> Bill > > >Somebody is. Prop 8 would allow drug offenders (including low >level dealers) to opt for treatment over prison, and would >require all fines, seized funds, and profits from the sale of >stolen^H^H^H^H^H^Hforfeited property in drug cases to be >used to finance treatment. > >I think one other state has a similar proposition this year, and >another (New Mexico?) has had a similar law in place for a >while, to great success. California passed the Medical Marijuana Initiative (more than once, as I recall, as the Fedgov found "technicalities" to strike it down the first time it passed). No "interstate commerce" is involved (*), for most home-grown pot, and yet the Fedgov has asserted the claim that federal dietary laws take precedence over local dietary laws. (* As we know, the interstate commerce clause was oriented toward making sure that only the Federal government could imposes tariffs on goods moving between the states. This was to head off a flurry of opportunisitc tariffs imposed by the states. It had _nothing_ to do with the notion that if a book publisher, for example, ships books across state lines that the Federal government then has some means to regulate the content. This seems to be commonly misunderstood; not by Cypherpunks, but I'm repeating this just to make sure.) If these United States were functioning as intended, this and similar cases would go to the Supreme Court and the Court would find that the states cannot be told what to by the Fedgov in matters like this. But we have not been functioning as intended for most of the past century. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: California bars free speech of those cutting deals on votes
At 9:48 AM + 11/1/00, Ken Brown wrote: > >The same has, I suspect, been true of 3rd parties in the USA. You can't >judge their strength by their vote because many of their votes because >they are nearly always a vote *against* whoever seems most likely to get >in. And because genuine supporters, knowing their preferred candidate >won't get in, may pragmatically vote for the contender they consider >least damaging. As Tim pointed out the other day. We're not doing this >for fun. If there is a chance of getting someone in who will do less >real damage, vote for them. In the absence of revolution, amelioration >at least ameliorates. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I'm bouncing between voting for Bush as a "do the least damage" (on gun issues, tax issues, foreign affairs, etc.) and voting for Browne of the LP on "feelgood" issues. (In that I'll feel better in coming years being able to think to myself: "I didn't vote for that Bush clown...I voted my principles!") However, as any vote is of marginal importance, as with the amelioration issue you mention, I'm still undecided. Needless to say, neither Gore nor Nader are in my universe of choices, however. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Zero Knowledge changes business model to Split KeyEscrow(NSA-Key (press release)
At 11:54 AM -0800 10/31/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: >On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Tim May wrote: > > > >>By building precisely the tools they and other governments would need >>to implement such a system, you are making such a system more likely >>to happen. > >'scuse me, but this gets a big raspberry. The tools governments would >need to implement such a system are already out there, in droves and >gobs. What ZKS does or does not contribute to that brew has little to >do with whether broken security gets rammed down everyone's throats or >not. And I disagree with your big raspberry. Suppose auto makers started building in the "radio signal ignition cutoff" feature that has been discussed here, where a remote signal can disable a running vehicle. Suppose that this is done without any legal regime in place to give law enforcement access. Would it be fair to say that building this technology into a product has made it more likely that lawmakers would make such a system mandatory? I think the answer is clearly "Yes." This is why Cypherpunks were so adamantly against PGP/NAI building-in the capability for escrowing of keys. > >Asking for crypto systems that cannot be used in such plans is a lot >like asking for bricks that cannot be used to build unsound structures. >Somebody might be able to develop such a brick: but it wouldn't be a >general, flexible component, and there'd be so many *sound* structures >you couldn't build with it, or had to expend a lot of head-sweat figuring >out *how* to build with it, that all the construction workers would >hate it and ignore it to death. I think you are missing the point. Think in terms of the ignition cutoff example above, or similar examples involving building video surveillance into hotel rooms, or building keystroke capture and storage tools into PCs, whatever. No one is suggesting limiting research into video technology, for example, just saying it's a Very Bad Idea for hotels or apartment buildings to build-in a capability very widely which could then be mandated by law at some later time. (Loosely related to why so many folks fear gun registration: gun registration often has led to gun confiscation.) > >I think that crypto tools ought to support whatever the hell crypto >operations the people using them want. Including third party access >to keys and the use of monoalphabetic substitution ciphers to encrypt >correspondence if they're stupid enough to want that. Yes, people and companies should be free to do as they wish. I've never claimed otherwise...nowhere have I said that ZKS should be constrained by men with guns to not develop such products! However, others of us are free to comment on the dangers of company plans and to urge changes in policies. Sounds fair to me. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
California bars free speech of those cutting deals on votes
California has "shut down"--through a threatening letter--a site which matches up folks who are willing to say they'll vote for Nader in states where Gore is sure to win if other folks who had hoped to vote for Nader will instead vote for Gore in order to help him in swing states. (Sounds complicated. But it's really simple. "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine." No money is changing hands, no actual "ballots" are being traded.) The Web site doing this is/was: http://www.voteswap2000.com/ The article on California's actions is: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001031/wr/campaign_traders_dc_1.html BTW, I just "expressed my preference" at the site: http://Winchell.com/NaderTrader/default.asp No doubt I am even now more of a speech criminal. I wonder if a raid is imminent. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Zero Knowledge changes business model (press release)
At 1:06 PM -0500 10/31/00, Adam Shostack wrote: >On Tue, Oct 31, 2000 at 09:11:23AM -0800, Tim May wrote: >| >>Zero-Knowledge is committed to deploying systems that are >| >>transparent and accountable. In keeping with this policy, >| >>MPS will incorporate third party verification and split >| >>encryption key structures >| >| Split encryption key. I think that says it all. > >Geez. I don't know how we ended up with that wording. Multiple key >would have made more sense. The goal is to have a set of keys which >are held by different entities. Thus, your data is encrypted such >that each of those entities needs to be involved to decrypt it. > >By split key encryption, we mean: E_a(E_b(E_c(data))) where E is a >strong algorithm (3des, twofish, AES), and the keys (abc) are full >strength, properly generated and stored keys for the system. Let's stipulate that the split keys are as strong as one can imagine. OK, let's set the stage with some players: * Alice, a consumer or customer * Bobco, a giant corporation dealing with Alice, collecting information on her, and all the usual stuff involving corporations dealing online with consumers like Alice. * Chuck and Debby, the holders of the "split encryption key," aka the "trusted third parties." (Extending the set to 3 or 4 or N such trusted third parties does not alter the basic discussion. Nor, by the way, does just having a _single_ trusted third party alter the basics of the legal/GAK structure: if the legal or national security system can force two parties to disclose, forcing one is easier, forcing 3 is slightly easier, and so on. But these are "polynomial" issues, so to speak.) I want to set the state so I can better understand just how and where this new ZKS system might be useful (to Alice, to Bobco, to governments). > >Given that we're doing this for businesses that are collecting data >now, if you consider those parties 'trusted third parties,' then we're >increasing the assurance that surrounds them. This business is what I called Bobco above. Now, suppose Bobco is using the ZKS system. I can see three regimes for any use of a crypto product: -- storage, at either Alice's or Bobco's site -- transit, between Alice and Bobco -- unlinkability: something to do with the linkage of purchase information with identity; how Bobco collects and disseminates information about customers like Alice The first two are conventional crypto issues, and don't need a new system. Both Alice and Bobco are responsible for securing their own data. Should laws require Bobco to secure Alice's data in some specific way, split key systems are still a poor solution. As near as I can tell, your concern about "privacy laws" has something to with the third main use for crypto: unlinkability. Am I right? Before I proceed further, let's see if this is where we're going. >We consider them >'merchants,' 'shipping companes' and other such businesses who today >get data from you. They're not trusted third parties in the Clipper >chip sense, but they are parties who store information about you, >often in very insecure and unprivate ways, as MCI, CDnow, and others >have found out. This sounds like the unlinkability again. If so, this is a tough, tough nut to crack. If Bobco is shipping products to Alice, Bobco knows her address and what she is buying. Fill in whatever examples one wishes. And if Alice answers a questionnaire about her buying preferences, her income, her age, etc., then Bobco will have this information. Hard to imagine how adding Charles and Debby to the system as trusted third parties helps things. Now, if Alice goes through a complicated procedure of dealing with Charles and Debby to only selectively reveal her preferences, or if Charles or Debby act as "third party shipping agents," so that Bobco doesn't know who he shipped a product to, then some unlinkability has been gotten. Anyway, I could ramble on about whether or not this makes for an interesting and profitable market niche, but it doesn't seem to be the thrust of where ZKS is going with this new product. Fact is, third party secrets are not interesting IF Bobco can aggregate the secret information AT ANY TIME. Unless some kind of unlinkability or blinding (a la Joan Feigenbaum's work on "computing with encrypted instances") is done, the trusted third parties don't serve much purpose that I can see. Maybe I'm missing something. How will Alice's privacy be protected from Bobco by having Charles and Debby (or just Charles, or Charles, Debby, Edward, Fred, and Greta, etc.) hold split keys? Wouldn't a better approach be for Alice to protect her own privacy? --T
ZKS goes GAK
At 11:06 AM -0500 10/31/00, Trei, Peter wrote: > >I don't want to be 'assured that a company is doing what it >claims' (with my personal information). Companies change >policies at whim. What a firm's founder may fervently >believe could become a curio of corporate history after the >next board meeting. Look at Amazon's recent policy >change, for example. Also, data in the possession of a >corporation and me is always less secure than information >possessed only by me. And sensitive data held by "trusted third parties" is always subject to subpoena by authorities, litigants (in some cases), and by national security access. (Not surprisingly, this is precisely why the U.K. was pushing "trusted third parties" so strongly.) In the United States, for example, the holder of information generally has less power to assert Fourth Amendment protections than the actual owner of that information has. (That is, if Alice the Storage Company is holding stuff for Bob, Alice cannot assert Fourth Amendment rights on behalf of Bob. Greg Broiles, IIRC, wrote up some nice stuff on this a few years ago.) A bank may disclose financial records of a customer subject to the banking laws, not subject to the Fourth and other such amendments. Wanna bet that the "trusted third parties" being talked about in Britain, Europe, and other countries will be treated in this light? In France and Iran for sure, and probably in the U.S. Will a company like Intel feel secure knowing that "trusted third parties" have the ability to access its most important secrets? Gimme a fucking break. Any such key sharing, key splitting, key escrow, GAK, trusted third parties, or "legitmate needs of law enforcement" completely guts the underlying crypto. Why bother trying to break a 128-bit key when court orders--often delivered secretly, as with banks, naational security concerns, etc.--will do the trick? GAK beats crack. (Carl Ellison's term for "government access to keys") > >Instead of being assured that the company is acting in >accordance with their stated policy du jour (or at least, >their lawyers' spin on it), I want to know that they CAN'T >abuse my personal data, because the don't have any. >That is the confidence which ZK's original scheme was >intended to produce, and which the introduction of this >plan seems to seems to suggest is no longer considered >a high priority at ZKS. If the original Freedom product is: a. as unbreakable/untraceable as was originally planned (verdict is out, IMO) and b. is continued to be supported and distributed then why would the new "trusted third parties" system be needed? Unless mandated by law, why would any company or organization place its secrets in the hands of others? Which may explain the language in the ZKS release about "in accord with relevant legislation." Of course, if local relevant legislation requires third party key escrow, what happens to the legality of the Freedom product? Hmmmhhh. > >It may be that the ZK's product 'Freedom' is proving a >financial bust (I won't use it until I can buy nyms >for cash at CompUSA). I understand the drive to meet >payroll and pay off VCs, but I can't help but be >saddened. I'm saddened as well. Many fine folks work for ZKS, including some folks I count as friends. And Austin Hill is a fine person, from what I have seen (one face-to-face meeting a couple of years ago, one long phone conversation, a few e-mails). Freedom was a sort of interesting product, though the "terms and conditions" for cancelling the prepaid nyms were unacceptable to me. I'm not shelling out $50 for a nym only to find it cancelled because I said something banned by Canada's laws about hate speech, as just one example. The requirement to buy with a credit card or other noncash instrument bothered me, as it bothers Peter. Lastly, the Mac issue. It may be that this new product is just being floated as a trial balloon, that Freedom and other "unbreakable" (so to speak) products will be their main focus. History shows that such trial balloons in the direction of key escrow, GAK, and key-splitting will be devastating. Recall how PGP got sidetracked into discussions of its limited key escrow feature set, with many people speaking out against the GAKware aspects; whether this contributed to what happened to the commercial prospects for PGP is unclear. I know that most of the Cypherpunks folks drifted away from Network Associates. If ZKS is seen as "building in Big Brother," then the PR consequences for them will be devastating. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
