Re: Fake Child Porn
Yes, there have been prosecutions. Four of the five appelate cases arose from criminal convictions; the Ninth Circuit case was brought by the porn industry as a facial challenge (and was the only successful 1A defense). See: http://www.politechbot.com/p-01501.html -Declan On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 10:22:51PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > On Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 09:46 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > > On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 09:27:10PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > >> If this becomes law, it will be a case of pure thoughtcrime. No > >> victims, > >> no aggression against another person, no actual people. Just > >> thoughtcrime. > > > > It is law, actually. Passed in 1996, with the Bruce Taylors of the > > world testifying in favor of it before Senate Judiciary. Hatch > > and Feinstein were chief sponsors. > > > > Five appeals courts have ruled on it. All but one (the Ninth Circuit) > > said it was constitutional. > > > > Thanks. I had forgotten which laws passed, which were struck down, and > which quietly died in committee. (Feinstein, especially, proposes a lot > of sickeningly statist laws...) > > Have there been any prosecutions yet on this? Or is prosecution on hold > while the courts review it? > > --Tim May
Re: Fake Child Porn
On Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 09:46 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 09:27:10PM -0700, Tim May wrote: >> If this becomes law, it will be a case of pure thoughtcrime. No >> victims, >> no aggression against another person, no actual people. Just >> thoughtcrime. > > It is law, actually. Passed in 1996, with the Bruce Taylors of the > world testifying in favor of it before Senate Judiciary. Hatch > and Feinstein were chief sponsors. > > Five appeals courts have ruled on it. All but one (the Ninth Circuit) > said it was constitutional. > Thanks. I had forgotten which laws passed, which were struck down, and which quietly died in committee. (Feinstein, especially, proposes a lot of sickeningly statist laws...) Have there been any prosecutions yet on this? Or is prosecution on hold while the courts review it? --Tim May
Re: The Crypto State
(I will use the word "nonsense" instead of "lies." Out of semi-politeness.) On Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 09:21 PM, Ray Dillinger wrote: >> But I am willing to give you a chance: Just how many of the books on >> my list had you either already read or did you locate and read in the >> days between when my list was published and when you announced that >> they were not very useful? > > Rand and Vinge; I had already read Hayek. Then how do you know the reading list is "not useful"? You have only read a few books out of the list I gave (added to by others, too). Also, did you actually _read_ "Atlas Shrugged" in the brief time between when you saw my list and when you reported it as "not useful"? And did you actually find a copy of "True Names" in this period? Impressive, if not a lie. > >> Read Schneier. >> Schneier or any other of the N basic crypto texts. Diffie-Hellman, >> for example. Blacknet, for another example. This is really basic, >> basic stuff. > > Yes, it is. Stuff that does not get talked about here. For > that reason, this list is near useless to anyone who actually > wants to learn about cryptography. Scheier was where I started, > but nobody wanted to talk about anything in there or develop > any of thos ideas. Nonsense. Remailers (Type I and II, Mixmaster), havens, Crypto++, Magic Money, the crypto breaks by Damien G., Ian Goldberg, David Wagner, others. You are utterly ignorant of what has happened on the list. > I now have the springer-verlag CD with the > book that is basically a table of contents for seventeen years > of crypto conferences. That is also a big help, although it's > frustrating to work with. > > A vast number of articles, yes. But no discussion. Nonsense. > >> Because you have shown a stubborn unwillingness to even learn the >> basicsand yet you claim the reading list I put out was useless to >> you, implying you had read and absorbed and evaluate those >> books...which I doubt. > > Vinge and Rand, and Hayek too for that matter, had squat to do > with cryptographic protocols. Vinge described a few cryptographic > applications, but the underlying PROTOCOLS were abbreviated or > missing. They were not what he was writing about. You are pitiable. An abject literalist, unable to abstract. > >> Your questions mark you as profoundly ignorant of even the basics, > > Yes, damnit, I feel that I *am* ignorant of a lot of basics, > because I read stuff, I think maybe I understand it and maybe > I don't, and nobody will TALK about it! As Declan pointed out, you are like someone saying "no one will TALK about how senators are elected, dammit!," while repeatedly ignoring suggestions to read the Constitution. > Nobody is willing to > bounce ideas or discuss it in detail. Nonsense. Read the discussions over the many years of the list. True, we don't discuss "how keys are exchanged" anymore...that level of discussion was too basic even in the first months of the list. Figure out why...that's a homework exercise for you. > Instead they want to > take the damn stuff as read, forget how it works, and start > invoking some fuzzy variation of it in some damn fantasy, the > same way Bell did with the idea of digital cash -- it was > pretty damn convincing until I looked close and realized he > hadn't done his homework. I get tired of saying this: no one on this list, that I can recall, took Bell's proposal as anything more than "theater." > > How many of the lofty invocations of other cryptographic > concepts here won't hold water because they've been invoked in > the same fuzzy way by ignorant people or posers? I won't know until > I take them apart myself, will I? But trying to get the details > of them from this list so they _CAN_ be analyzed is like trying > to nail jelly to a tree, because nobody's interested in the > "implementation details." Nonsense. >> and, more importantly, of being willing to spend some time reading >> even the most basic, core texts. Asking about how keys are exchanged, >> how things work without "trusted servers," etc., marks you as a >> complete newbie. > > Those are examples of the questions I had when I came here. Not > the questions I still have. You claimed recently that you were on the list when Vulis and/or Detweiler were on the list. Was this a stretching of the truth as well? If you were on the list in 1996, then you have had 5 years to "catch up" on the basics of cryptography. Why haven't you read these materials? You claim no one talks in detail. Have you read the articles on PipeNet by Wei Dai? How about the analyses by Hal Finney of DC Nets? How about my own Cyphernomicon? And so on, for literally hundreds of posters and tens of thousands of nontrivial posts. >> You claim you have been reading the list since Detweiler was active, >> which means since about 1995-96. > > No, I didn't. I claimed I had read the list for about a semester (I > was taking a networks class, I read a lot of semi-rela
Re: Fake Child Porn
On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 09:27:10PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > If this becomes law, it will be a case of pure thoughtcrime. No victims, > no aggression against another person, no actual people. Just > thoughtcrime. It is law, actually. Passed in 1996, with the Bruce Taylors of the world testifying in favor of it before Senate Judiciary. Hatch and Feinstein were chief sponsors. Five appeals courts have ruled on it. All but one (the Ninth Circuit) said it was constitutional. See: http://216.110.42.179/docs/nlc-frc.amicus.042301.html http://law2.house.gov/uscode-cgi/fastweb.exe?getdoc+uscview+t17t20+965+0++%28%29%20%20AND%20%28%2818%29%20ADJ%20USC%29%3ACITE%20AND%20%28USC%20w%2F10%20%282256%29%29%3ACITE%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20 -Declan
Re: Fake Child Porn
On Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 08:31 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 01:36:00PM -0700, Eric Cordian wrote: >> It's unfortunate that the majority of the Amicus briefs filed in this >> case >> seem to be from conservative groups and quasi-governmental puppet >> organizations. > > It gets worse. One of the conservative groups reportedly filed on > behalf of a bunch of right-wing congresscritters. > > The Free Speech Coalition's amici get a few more weeks to prepare > their briefs. > "prepare their briefs"...is this sort of like "morphing their panties"? BTW, this whole "fake child porn" issue has been coming to a head, so to speak, for a decade or so. I remember talking about this with Keith Henson back in the early 90s when he was working with the "Amateur Action" defendants (they went to prison, in part for having images with titles suggesting child porn, even though no actual images were child porn). This case also involved a jurisdiction in Kentucky, IIRC, getting a conviction of residents of California. As this was around the time of "Terminator 2," with lots of morphing, and "Morph" had just appeared for the Mac, there was much discussion of the implications. Some morphed images were pretty convincing (Message to Jeff Gordon: no, I don't have copies of any of the GIFs on any of my old disk drives). If this becomes law, it will be a case of pure thoughtcrime. No victims, no aggression against another person, no actual people. Just thoughtcrime. --Tim May
Re: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 10:53:20PM -0500, Aimee Farr wrote: > That chum, Declan, in case you haven't noticed, is ME. And, that was just > one sentence in the context of a dialogue. It is time for me to take my > leave. My sincere apologies for abusing your hospitality. Oh, I'm not encouraging you to leave the list. First, it's not my place. Second, it would be a waste of my time if you decided to stay. Third, I'm direct enough that I'd say that if I meant it. I'm just encouraging you to refrain from baiting the resident sharks. -Declan
Re: Wendy Grossman: From Anarchy to Power: The Net Comes of Age
On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 09:05:24PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > Not a single such conference organizer has contacted me. For either a > paying gig or a freebie from me. Hmm. Well, I *did* recommend you. > I'm not meaning to sound bitter, just bemused that conferences on things > like "anonymity in cyberspace" (a conference a few years ago in Southern > California, as I recall) had a bunch of journalists and academics, but > none of the Bay Area folks who unveiled the most interesting remailers > and did much to explore the implications. Ditto for numerous other > conferences. True. It was organized by AAAS, which is of course in DC and had that kind of focus. It did have Peter Neumann and Lance Cottrell and Peter Wayner, all of whom are technical and had something to add; I recall that a lot of the rest were profs and lawyers. > This is probably why Wendy Grossman agreed, as a journalist, to be > interviewed by another journalist: she has a book to publicize. Are you kidding? Journalists *love* to get interviewed by other journalists. Conferences, radio shows, TV talk shows, all are examples of this phenomenon. Fortunately print media seems to be a bit better. We generally don't interview other reporters unless: (1) We're writing about them or their publications, like an article about layoffs or getting fired; (2) they have a book out; (3) they're truly an expert. For instance, I'd call the High Times guys (who I now know from the NORML convention) for an article on pot smoking trends. > I expect the CFP Conference, which even half a dozen years ago had way > too many journalists "comped" into it, will eventually consist mostly of > journalists on panels, journalists giving keynotes (that they spent an > hour or two preparing ideas for), journalists in the audience, and > journalists standing in the food line. Oh, and the government narcs and Hahahahaha. -Declan
Re: The Crypto State
On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Tim May wrote: >Frankly, I doubt that you have read "The Communist Manifesto." For >multiple reasons, including its length and boringness. Boring I'll give it, but it's brief. >But mainly because I have decided you are likely a liar. You said you >"thanked me" for my Reading List, just about 4 days after it was >published here. I thanked you for pointing at something concrete, yes. It represented a change. >But I am willing to give you a chance: Just how many of the books on >my list had you either already read or did you locate and read in the >days between when my list was published and when you announced that >they were not very useful? Rand and Vinge; I had already read Hayek. >Read Schneier. >Schneier or any other of the N basic crypto texts. Diffie-Hellman, >for example. Blacknet, for another example. This is really basic, >basic stuff. Yes, it is. Stuff that does not get talked about here. For that reason, this list is near useless to anyone who actually wants to learn about cryptography. Scheier was where I started, but nobody wanted to talk about anything in there or develop any of thos ideas. I now have the springer-verlag CD with the book that is basically a table of contents for seventeen years of crypto conferences. That is also a big help, although it's frustrating to work with. A vast number of articles, yes. But no discussion. >Because you have shown a stubborn unwillingness to even learn the >basicsand yet you claim the reading list I put out was useless to >you, implying you had read and absorbed and evaluate those >books...which I doubt. Vinge and Rand, and Hayek too for that matter, had squat to do with cryptographic protocols. Vinge described a few cryptographic applications, but the underlying PROTOCOLS were abbreviated or missing. They were not what he was writing about. >Your questions mark you as profoundly ignorant of even the basics, Yes, damnit, I feel that I *am* ignorant of a lot of basics, because I read stuff, I think maybe I understand it and maybe I don't, and nobody will TALK about it! Nobody is willing to bounce ideas or discuss it in detail. Instead they want to take the damn stuff as read, forget how it works, and start invoking some fuzzy variation of it in some damn fantasy, the same way Bell did with the idea of digital cash -- it was pretty damn convincing until I looked close and realized he hadn't done his homework. How many of the lofty invocations of other cryptographic concepts here won't hold water because they've been invoked in the same fuzzy way by ignorant people or posers? I won't know until I take them apart myself, will I? But trying to get the details of them from this list so they _CAN_ be analyzed is like trying to nail jelly to a tree, because nobody's interested in the "implementation details." >and, more importantly, of being willing to spend some time reading >even the most basic, core texts. Asking about how keys are exchanged, >how things work without "trusted servers," etc., marks you as a >complete newbie. Those are examples of the questions I had when I came here. Not the questions I still have. I've found a few methods, out of Schneier mostly, no thanks to anyone here. I bet there's hundreds more methods than I've seen yet, and I want to know what they all are because they have different, and usefully different properties. I'm going to be working through the conference proceedings for years. >You claim you have been reading the list since Detweiler was active, >which means since about 1995-96. No, I didn't. I claimed I had read the list for about a semester (I was taking a networks class, I read a lot of semi-related stuff) during 1995 and I've been elsewhere since. I left for six years and came back. Bear
Re: The Well-Read Cypherpunk
On Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 09:21 AM, Bill Stewart wrote: > Perhaps the field has changed since I was in college, but back then, > academic econometrics had the reputation of being dominated by > Marxists - > the more-Scientific Socialists who understood that if you want a > centrally planned economy, you have to measure it so you can control it, > as opposed to the purely political Scientific Socialists who believed in > centrally planning an economy based on class struggle and rewarding > heroic truck factory workers and shooting bourgeois greedy bankers and > other warm fuzzy liberal values stuff. > > While the US government doesn't strongly believe in central planning, > it has still supported that kind of field because if you want to > spend lots of money, either on liberal welfare state programs, > right-wing Anti-Commie military-industrial-complex welfare programs, > or good old fashioned bi-partisan pork for your friends, > you need to know how and where to squeeze the economy to maximize > revenue without overly disrupting the processes that generate it. > I'll provide a data point about what corporations want: they hire a _lot_ of MBAs, but not a lot of "economists." Sure, MBAs have to complete a series of econ courses, probably based on Samuelson and the various micro- and macro-econ courses, but mostly corporations are seeking those with tools to manage businesses, markets, product lines, etc. Classical economics is not a focus. And as Bill said in another post, Samuelson generated a very big book mainly (it seems) to sell more copies. Sort of like similar big books in molecular biology and organic chemistry. --Tim May
Re: Wendy Grossman: From Anarchy to Power: The Net Comes of Age
On Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 08:42 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > That might be me, not sure from your description. I do speak > frequently at conferences, including libertarian ones, and probably > (to be frank) wouldn't be as good as some other listdenizens. I've got > deadlines, and usually only have 1-3 hours to prepare for a > presentation. Others might have more time to prepare, and better > technical or mathematical knowledge. *shrug* > > But Tim, I *have* recommended that at least one conference organizer > contact you for a paying gig, and I don't recall you taking it. :) > Not a single such conference organizer has contacted me. For either a paying gig or a freebie from me. I'm not meaning to sound bitter, just bemused that conferences on things like "anonymity in cyberspace" (a conference a few years ago in Southern California, as I recall) had a bunch of journalists and academics, but none of the Bay Area folks who unveiled the most interesting remailers and did much to explore the implications. Ditto for numerous other conferences. It seems organizers take the easy way out: they call a bunch of writers and journalists who agree to do some off the cuff speculation. A friend of mine pointed out some years ago that the only guests ever seen on the Jay Leno or David Letterman shows, or similar shows, are those who are there to "pimp" their latest movie, book, or cause. This is probably why Wendy Grossman agreed, as a journalist, to be interviewed by another journalist: she has a book to publicize. I expect the CFP Conference, which even half a dozen years ago had way too many journalists "comped" into it, will eventually consist mostly of journalists on panels, journalists giving keynotes (that they spent an hour or two preparing ideas for), journalists in the audience, and journalists standing in the food line. Oh, and the government narcs and spies taking notes on who's advocating thoughtcrime. Not that this is a new phenomenon. --Tim May
RE: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
Declan wrote: > On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 03:08:19PM -0500, Aimee Farr wrote: > > This caught me a nudder fish. I'm going into my reinforced > steel shark cage, > > 'cause this tells Mr. Big Fish could be behind him (Tim is > like those > > three sharks with memory in that Deep Blue Sea movie.) > > Aimee, I like you, I really do. I know there is a lawyer with your > name and location since I spent a moment checking on Martindale.com; > I'm going to take a gamble and say that you are who you say you > are. You seem smart, somewhat tech-clueful, and even a potential > cypherpunk. > That said, you're now posting mainly peculiar and strange messages. Well, some are not without intent nor subtle purpose, Declan. Some people don't...oh, never mind. But, your point is not without validity. > You're not doing this with a sincere desire to engage in dialogue, but > with the stated purpose of baiting Tim, John, and others. Now, John > may enjoy the repartee, but many cypherpunkly types would rather > engage with someone who's doing more than baiting us and watching the > sharks fight over the chum. That chum, Declan, in case you haven't noticed, is ME. And, that was just one sentence in the context of a dialogue. It is time for me to take my leave. My sincere apologies for abusing your hospitality. ~Aimee PS: I'm sorry for calling you a pecky Mockingbird. Texan for attention to detail. :)
Re: The Well-Read Cypherpunk [ Samuelson-bashing ]
At 09:08 AM 04/22/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote: >I haven't found Samuelson's textbook useful for any of the >interesting discussions of markets, black markets, offshore havens, ... I used Samuelson's textbooks to study micro and macro in college. *Terrible*! Badly written, verbose, not structured well at all, especially for the mathematically literate student, and heavily tied up in the Keynesian government-knows-what's-best command economy view of the world. OK, the dude *did* have a Nobel prize in economics, but as near as I could tell, what he *really* specialized in was the economics of textbook sales, updating this heavy tome every year or two so students had to buy new ones instead of getting them used and selling them back to the campus bookstore at the end of the year. Most of the chapters had an appendix at the end which said most of the same material half as verbosely, but even that was still wading through molasses. I don't mind a certain amount of excess material if the author can write well and enjoyably, but this wasn't it. Some of the micro classes switched to a different textbook a year or two later - I think the author may have been Peterson? which was much thinner and more readable. My micro class was taught by a University of Chicago guy who was a good speaker, clear without oversimplifying, and who did a good job of balancing depth for his audience. Micro being what it is, this involved a certain amount of "Ok, engineers, this is an integral, go back to sleep while I show the liberal arts majors areas under curves". That's easier to do well with micro than macro, but it still ain't that hard. I'd also taken economics in high school, and once Mrs. Borish was sick and the old retired guy who used to teach the course came in and subbed - he covered more in two days than we did the rest of the semester and a good third or half of the Micro 102 college course, though not in as much depth as the college material. It's worth reading Samuelson if you discuss economics much with people who learned it using Samuelson, just so you can balance the jargon and understand the themes they work with, but it's really dreck. Get the Cliff Notes if there are any :-)
Re: Wendy Grossman: From Anarchy to Power: The Net Comes of Age
On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 03:51:44PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > Of course, in this day and age, it's the journalists and scribblers > who fill the panels at conferences, and it's the journalists sought > out by other journalists for comments on the Meaning of it All. One > of our well-known journalists, a good one, was saying recently that > he's been invited to many special conferences on cutting edge issues, > libertarian technopolitics, etc. I guess I'll need to become a > journalist to even be invited to my _first_ such event! Merely That might be me, not sure from your description. I do speak frequently at conferences, including libertarian ones, and probably (to be frank) wouldn't be as good as some other listdenizens. I've got deadlines, and usually only have 1-3 hours to prepare for a presentation. Others might have more time to prepare, and better technical or mathematical knowledge. *shrug* But Tim, I *have* recommended that at least one conference organizer contact you for a paying gig, and I don't recall you taking it. :) -Declan
Re: Amtrak & The War On Drugs
On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 06:43:20PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > From our perspective, it will show the foolishness of government > overreaction (ordering a million animals to be slaughtered and burned > with tires and old pressure-treated lumber railroad ties). Good summary. Here's an ENS report: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-19-12.html UK's Foot and Mouth Cull Raises Toxic Dilemma 2001-04-19 23:51:15 UK's Foot and Mouth Cull Raises Toxic Dilemma LONDON, United Kingdom, April 19, 2001 (ENS) - The foot and mouth outbreak is under control, according to the United Kingdom government's chief scientist, but the logistical challenge of quickly disposing of more than a million slaughtered animals is raising new fears over dioxins and groundwater contamination... Yes, top-down government regulation is clearly the best way to handle environmental crises, as the Brits showed so very well. -Declan
Re: Amtrak & The War On Drugs
No argument here. I recall a lot of this was in the '96 legislative session, especially the summer. I have some articles on the topic archived at www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Declan_McCullagh -Declan On Wed, Apr 25, 2001 at 09:34:44AM +1000, Ralph Wallis wrote: > On Tuesday, 24 Apr 2001 at 16:13, Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > However, it used to be SOP to buy train tickets at the ticket > > window--for cash and with no I.D. or phone numbers or SS numbers or > > forehead marks. > > > > It looks like the "temporary measures" to combat the "TWA 800 > > bombing" sorts of events, even though TWA 800 almost certainly wasn't > > a bombing, are now spreading to the trains. > > I just read Database Nation, which notes that this was an immediate > result of TWA 800 and the Atlanta Olympic bombing. (Along with similar > policies for air travel.) > > So it's not a sign of spreading. Since Atlanta was 5 years ago, > it's not a temporary measure either.
Re: The Crypto State
Yep. Brands' book is out from MIT Press, so it's even accessible. (Well, relatively accessible; I keep planning on finishing it RSN.) For someone to ask on cypherpunks for pointers to basic crypto concepts and ignoring reading lists is like someone posting to a political mailing list and asking how senators are elected, and refusing to read the Constitution. (I'm not saying this current case is the same, but it has similarities.) -Declan On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 06:25:23PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > Read Schneier. Read the oft-cited (certainly cited many times in the > years since you claim to have been here, i.e., since when Detweiler > was here) Proceedings of the Crypto Conferences (Springer-Verlag, > every year)/
Re: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 03:08:19PM -0500, Aimee Farr wrote: > This caught me a nudder fish. I'm going into my reinforced steel shark cage, > 'cause this tells Mr. Big Fish could be behind him (Tim is like those > three sharks with memory in that Deep Blue Sea movie.) Aimee, I like you, I really do. I know there is a lawyer with your name and location since I spent a moment checking on Martindale.com; I'm going to take a gamble and say that you are who you say you are. You seem smart, somewhat tech-clueful, and even a potential cypherpunk. That said, you're now posting mainly peculiar and strange messages. You're not doing this with a sincere desire to engage in dialogue, but with the stated purpose of baiting Tim, John, and others. Now, John may enjoy the repartee, but many cypherpunkly types would rather engage with someone who's doing more than baiting us and watching the sharks fight over the chum. -Declan
RE: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
Choate: > On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Aimee Farr wrote: > > > First, the law can be used to the advantage of aforesaid 'technological > > means,' often giving hints. For example, somewhat in the context of this > > discussion, it seems possible to have electronic communication > that does not > > imply third-party permission to record. Originally, in the mists of timethis conversation came up in the context of third-parties being subject to subpoena, if I can think that far backyes, that was a screw up since I carried it over. Thank you. Here is the case I had on my mind @ the time: http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/opindisp.cfm?docid=193047MAJ > What '3rd party'? Single party states require the person doing the > recording to be a PARTICIPANT in the discussion, this implies that at > least one other party is aware of their presence. Hardly '3rd' person. > Two party states require ALL participants to agree, again no recognition > of any '3rd party' right to record. > > How can a lawyer confuse this with a clear violation of the 4th with > non-participatory '3rd party' recording? Hm. How can anybody confuse privacy statutes with the 4TH Amendment? Hmmm > > Finally, the law has an impressive track record, in stark contrast to > > 'crypto-anarchy.' > > To wit, of failure. > > > > The solution lies in the heart of humankind. > > Chris Lawson > >The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate >Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::>/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] >www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 >-~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- >
RE: Amtrak & The War On Drugs
> Tim May concludes: > Those in other countries should not sit back and smirk. France, > Germany, and Japan are already far along in their march to statism. > Kanada is catching up. And don't forget the dutch with their shiny new face & iris scans embedded within immigrant identity cards. of course they're only in trials now, with immigrants, because immigrants have to report to police regularly. by the time 2003 rolls by all dutch citizens will require the same scans be stored on eu identity cards. perhaps they'll require these electronic scans next be used for online transactions as well? keep smoking. phillip
Re: Amtrak & The War On Drugs
At 5:20 PM -0700 4/24/01, David Honig wrote: >At 11:02 AM 4/24/01 +0100, Ken Brown wrote: > and burn a million cows on pyres of >>used tyres and railway sleepers (they are thinking of using napalm to >>save money) > >The chemicals in the materials you're using for your pyres are >poisoning the locals with dioxins... napalm is a lot cleaner and faster than >dioxin-generating old tires and railroad ties, supposedly. > >We have the Burning Man festival; y'all have your Burning Cow >festival. Whatever melts your cheese. I saw an estimate yesterday that millions of hectares of farmland are now contaminated with enough dioxins from The Burnings that the U.S. government will likely not let their output into the U.S. European nations, ever eager to poke a stick in England's eye, are reportedly considering the same ban. If true, this is going to nuke the U.K. big time. From our perspective, it will show the foolishness of government overreaction (ordering a million animals to be slaughtered and burned with tires and old pressure-treated lumber railroad ties). I wonder if the starving Brits will also be burned in piles? --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: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
RE: Amtrak & The War On Drugs
BTW, I need a gray travel consultant. Lemme know if anybody knows of one. Will accept salt-and-pepper gray. ~Aimee > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Tim May > Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 6:13 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Amtrak & The War On Drugs > > > At 3:55 PM -0800 4/24/01, Raymond D. Mereniuk wrote: > >On 24 Apr 2001, at 11:02, Ken Brown wrote: > > > >> You need phone numbers to buy train tickets? Why? Since when? The USA > >> may be a wonderful country but over here where we we employ > > > >I believe in the original story the fellow bought a train from Phoenix > >Arizona to Boston MA. This is a little different then buying a ticket > >for a trip from Waterloo to Sevenoaks or London to Manchester. > >Distance wise it is comparable to a London to Baghdad trip. > > However, it used to be SOP to buy train tickets at the ticket > window--for cash and with no I.D. or phone numbers or SS numbers or > forehead marks. > > It looks like the "temporary measures" to combat the "TWA 800 > bombing" sorts of events, even though TWA 800 almost certainly wasn't > a bombing, are now spreading to the trains. > > "First they demanded ID and SS numbers for the airlines, but I didn't > fly so I did nothing. Then they demanded the same for trains, but I > didn't take trains, so I did nothing. Now they demand ID and SS > numbers for buses and public parking lots, and my trial is next > month." > > Anyone paying in untraceable funds is Assumed to be a Suspicious > Person. Anyone not giving credit card and SS information, likewise. > > And in Amerika, to be a Suspicious Person is probable cause for a > search of bags and backpacks and purses, the Fourth Amendment be > damned. > > (The taking without due process, covered by other constitutional > rights, is another matter, though the conclusion that Amerika has > become a kleptocracy is unchanged.) > > Those in other countries should not sit back and smirk. France, > Germany, and Japan are already far along in their march to statism. > Kanada is catching up. > > > --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: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Re: The Crypto State
At 4:44 PM -0700 4/24/01, Ray Dillinger wrote: >On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Ken Brown wrote: > > >>You want maybe a recipe? An instruction book for helping the state >>wither away? Try the Communist Manifesto, it's good. > >I've read it already. > >And no, I don't want a recipe for helping the state wither away >or change form. That's a several-centuries process, and I haven't >the attention span for it. Frankly, I doubt that you have read "The Communist Manifesto." For multiple reasons, including its length and boringness. But mainly because I have decided you are likely a liar. You said you "thanked me" for my Reading List, just about 4 days after it was published here. Then you said you hadn't found the books useful. One possibility is that you had already read all or most of the books, including Benson, Axelrod, Hayek, etc., and concluded retrospectively that my recommending them meant that my list was not of much use. The other main possibility is that you were implying you had located these books, either via Amazon or via a well-equipped library, and had read them and found them wanting. Frankly, I consider both possibilities unlikely in the extreme. But I am willing to give you a chance: Just how many of the books on my list had you either already read or did you locate and read in the days between when my list was published and when you announced that they were not very useful? If you actually read Rand, Hayek, Benson, Axelrod, Vinge, Friedman, etc. in those several days, I am impressed with your reading speed. If you either just read summaries on Amazon of the books, or flipped the pages at high speed in a Borders or Barnes and Noble then I am not impressed at all. (And I am quite certain that no extant Borders will have even half of the books listed.) If you ordered the books by Amazon--including the out of print editions--and then read them in the day after they all arrived...well, we'll talk about that later. > > >What I wanted, when I showed up here looking, was evaluation of >specific protocols for doing specific things. For example, how >does an election protocol with cryptographic ballots work? Read Schneier. Read the oft-cited (certainly cited many times in the years since you claim to have been here, i.e., since when Detweiler was here) Proceedings of the Crypto Conferences (Springer-Verlag, every year)/ >How >do Alice and Bob exchange keys? Schneier or any other of the N basic crypto texts. Diffie-Hellman, for example. Blacknet, for another example. This is really basic, basic stuff. >What are the ways in which >different types of digital cash protect the identity of the >buyer or seller, and how does each work? Chaum, Brands, Schneier, etc. A vast number of articles. >Are there ways to >distribute "shares" of identity so that groups of people can >participate in another protocol as though they were one person, >and if so how does that work? N-out-of-M protocols, Shamir's secret-sharing. Again, basic crypto stuff. >What types of authentication can >happen without trusted servers and how does each work? "Trusted servers" are a highly misleading, and security-fucked, approach. Webs of trust, interstellar communication, Blacknet, reputations. > >I've gotten maybe three scraps of help on such questions >from this list, and they were minimal -- pointers to offlist >and off-net resources. Because you have shown a stubborn unwillingness to even learn the basicsand yet you claim the reading list I put out was useless to you, implying you had read and absorbed and evaluate those books...which I doubt. > In order to get that, I've put up with >a lot of sneers, condescencion, posing, and political rants >with no underpinning of reality, which I personally find >distasteful. Your questions mark you as profoundly ignorant of even the basics, and, more importantly, of being willing to spend some time reading even the most basic, core texts. Asking about how keys are exchanged, how things work without "trusted servers," etc., marks you as a complete newbie. You claim you have been reading the list since Detweiler was active, which means since about 1995-96. This means you are uneducable. Or lying. Or both. --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: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
RE: Trolling....(((((aluger)))))
? aluger, in gentlemanly defense, wrote: ?? aluger, because he is a big damn hotshot showoff, wrote: ??? aluger, preemptively, in defense of his buddy, wrote: > At Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:08:17 -0700, Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > >At 1:11 PM -0500 4/24/01, Aimee Farr wrote: > >>Mike said, quoting me, quoting Tim: (I'm on lunch - billable hour sink > >this place.) > >> > >>> Further, I don't think individuals owe any obligation to the law as > to > >>> the participants, form, content or retention of private > communications. > >> > >>Recognizing that the law does not agree with you, that's a > valid opinion. > > > >Show me the law on who can *participate* in private communications. > > See Generally: Several penal codes re: probation prohibiting individuals > from conducting certain communications with felons, minors, > foreign nationals > (in the case of espionage) and etc. See also, the oil embargo. > > >Show me the law on what *form* private communications must have, may > >have, may not have, etc. > > Feel free to review any number of banking regulations that stipulate the > nature and form of otherwise private dealings between two actors. > > >Show me the law on what *content* is permitted in private communications. > > See Generally: Criminal Law - Conspiracy. > > >Show me the law on *retention* of private communications. > > See financial record keeping requirements imposed even on private > companies, > import export firms, taxation, etc. See also, currency > reporting requirements > for other wise "private" transactions. See also, regulations for record > retention in the transaction of firearms. etc. etc. > > >I can think of various laws about child porn, death threats, > >classified secrets, etc., which affect some of the above, but these > >are "clearly special cases" and it is a mistake to confuse laws about > >child porn, for example, with disputing Mike's general point that the > >law simply does not regulate private communications. > > Well, suffice it to say that there are a lot of "clearly special cases." > > >Not as to participants, form, content, or retention. > > See above. See woman *fiendishly* working on a response to May's poodle attack. See woman's face when.. I am reflecting on the evils I have suffered through, just to get one handful of the hair of that dog that bit me. And then you run in and STEAL it out from my little hand. This just in: May says you have no hair. Next, he will claim you have unwittingly stepped into his trap. Yepsure 'nuff. You have 1st chair, Mr. Hushmail jacket, but it is not worth your time. 'oil embargo?' ~Aimee
Re: Recording conversations and the laws of men
At 11:05 AM 4/24/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>"The laws of mathematics, not the laws of men." (I think Eric Hughes
>came up with this, but I could be wrong.)
Gilmour I think.
>Again, just so. The laws about tape-recording conversations have no
>basis in any moral theory I can support. If I choose to "gargoyle"
>myself and have a tape recorder, even a video recorder, running at
>all times, how is this doing physical violence to others?
Indeed. If you are a minor in a mandatory youth re-education camp ("public
school")
in Calif, it is illegal to bring electronics into school. As wireless
(with cameras)
permeates the culture, this becomes ridiculous; I could point to letters to
the editor
in a local (yuppie) paper calling for removal of this law, and using
Columbine/Santee/etc.
as the excuse.
Personally I plan to teach Jr. how to do covert recording; otherwise it might
be his word vs. a schoolyard bully or state-employed bully. [FWIW, I think
some girl
was recently acquitted of wiretap charges for taping or imaging a teacher's
lecture
(for review later) because there was no expectation of privacy. Teachers are
after all your employees.]
>(Even contractual issues are amenable to this analysis. If Alice
>doesn't want to be taped in her interactions with Bob, she can
>negotiate an arrangement that he turns off his tape recorders in her
>presence. If he violates this contract, perhaps she can collect. Some
>day this will likely be done via polycentric law, a la "Snow Crash.")
Nice.
..
Sci Fi: its becoming possible to separate [1] various effects of
benzodiazepines
so that you could have a pharm tool which knocks out memory reliably (but
doesn't depress respiration, cause ataxia, addiction, etc.) which could
replace the NDA. "We'll tell your our bizplan if you take this amnesic"
Sort of Johnny Mnemonic without the recall. Interesting for resumes, too:
"Consulted for XYZ company, presumably using my ABC skills, but I don't
recall."
[1] see recent studies in mice with particular subclasses of receptors
knocked out
Re: Trolling
At 5:19 PM -0700 4/24/01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >Well, suffice it to say that there are a lot of "clearly special cases." >> >And suffice it to say that if we drop probation, financial exchanges and >corporate topics and stick with conversations ( information exchanges ) >between ordinary individuals all is well but keep pushing the technology >since the bad guys will never give up. Exactly, precisely, totally! The list of "restrictions on communications" from our Hushmail contributor was expected. I could have generated such a list myself, obviously. The problem with the mindset of folks like Aimee and Ms./Mr. Hushmail is that they have essentially _given up_. They have taken the welter of laws regarding how corporate officers may communicate with other corporate officers (dating back to 1890), how draft opponents may communicate with the public (dating back to 1920), and so on and so forth, and have said this "means" government has the authority to order the form, content, and participants in a conversation. Feh. --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: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Re: Teller, Garwin, and H-Bomb
At 11:31 AM 4/24/01 -0700, Tim May wrote: >By the way, I consider Teller to be one of the most ethically >forthright public figures I've encountered. He has argued _against_ >classification of secrets except in rare circumstances (troop >movements, submarine positions, nuclear bomb designs). I heard him >make this point eloquently at a lecture I attended in 1972 or so. It >always stuck with me. You might find Sam Cohen's _Shame_ (published by Xlibris.com, ie self-published) interesting. After he discusses his mother's infliction of enemas on himself, he gets into the ethics of neutron weapons, which he invented and thinks is a pretty cool solution for lots of geopolitical problems. He's part of the jewish nuclear conspiracy, but not the hungarian jewish nuclear conspiracy like Teller, von Neumann, etc.. (:-)
Trolling
>Well, suffice it to say that there are a lot of "clearly special cases." > And suffice it to say that if we drop probation, financial exchanges and corporate topics and stick with conversations ( information exchanges ) between ordinary individuals all is well but keep pushing the technology since the bad guys will never give up.
Re: The Crypto State
On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Ken Brown wrote: >Ray Dillinger wrote: > >> The only real difference is that the functions of government are >> distributed instead of being vested in particular people. > >Which is pretty near a definition of anarchy according to my anarchist >friends. Alright. Then, perhaps, I should clarify that I wasn't talking necessarily about a society in which all interactions are voluntary, which seems to be the goal of many anarchists. >You want maybe a recipe? An instruction book for helping the state >wither away? Try the Communist Manifesto, it's good. I've read it already. And no, I don't want a recipe for helping the state wither away or change form. That's a several-centuries process, and I haven't the attention span for it. What I wanted, when I showed up here looking, was evaluation of specific protocols for doing specific things. For example, how does an election protocol with cryptographic ballots work? How do Alice and Bob exchange keys? What are the ways in which different types of digital cash protect the identity of the buyer or seller, and how does each work? Are there ways to distribute "shares" of identity so that groups of people can participate in another protocol as though they were one person, and if so how does that work? What types of authentication can happen without trusted servers and how does each work? I've gotten maybe three scraps of help on such questions from this list, and they were minimal -- pointers to offlist and off-net resources. In order to get that, I've put up with a lot of sneers, condescencion, posing, and political rants with no underpinning of reality, which I personally find distasteful. >> What I've been able to do since is find that there are ways >> to solve a bunch of technical problems > >So tell us the ways. I have, a couple of times. A few months ago, when the american presidential election debacle was at its peak, I posted an election protocol to the list. I was disappointed that no substantive discussion of its technical merits or problems ensued. A few people even chided me for posting something substantive, or tried to pose as omniscient by saying it was too simple to merit their attention. I frankly don't give a flying damn about such chest-beating, but the absence of anyone willing or able to discuss it was a disappointment. An Election Protocol is not a path through history to crypto anarchy. It is a method of building one thing using cryptography. It is one solution of thousands possible, for one problem out of thousands or millions. My search is a search for useful stuff, not a search for ways to get rid of government employees. But even if you choose crypto anarchy as the object of your work, are you so obsessed with what you think it might look like that you disdain to consider the protocols which are the individual building blocks you'd have to use to build it? It is true that I despise governments, for inefficiencies and oppression; however, I've no reason to suspect that I would despise the Crypto State any less, on either score. Both involve coercion by effective monopolies on violence. It would have the same power to spend public money inefficiently and corruptly, and I see no reason to believe that it would do so any less. Also, it could have the same power to transgress against individuals, and I don't see a reason to believe that it would exercise it any less. >What "proof" can there be that implementation is possible? Implementation of particular protocols is what I intended to ask about. Hard Science - functioning protocols for particular tasks. Without the support of thousands of protocols, the political fantasies of which you accuse me are so much wishful thinking and hot air, less relevant than a fart. The question is not whether you can 'justify' crypto anarchy, or whether there's a way to get there, or even whether that's a worthwhile goal - the question is whether there's even anything to justify or get TO. Until I had seen several hundred individual protocols, there was nothing for me to discuss. >We can't even >prove that a non-trivial computer program is correct, never mind a >political program. Sodomize all political programs. They disgust me. I am interested in solving problems and building useful things. I am interested in government only insofar as it is useful or solves problems. Solving problems sometimes has political consequences, and I accept that. Governments, like the lemur-like creatures of the cretacious which are the ancestors of modern human, will adapt until they are no longer recognizable to us as governments. Perhaps one day they will have adapted sufficiently far that there are no government employees and no one left to blame but ourselves for the injustices we do one another. Perhaps not. Ultimately, it doesn't matter how large or how distributed the group abusing public
Re: Trolling
At Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:08:17 -0700, Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >At 1:11 PM -0500 4/24/01, Aimee Farr wrote: >>Mike said, quoting me, quoting Tim: (I'm on lunch - billable hour sink >this place.) >> >>> Further, I don't think individuals owe any obligation to the law as to >>> the participants, form, content or retention of private communications. >> >>Recognizing that the law does not agree with you, that's a valid opinion. > >Show me the law on who can *participate* in private communications. See Generally: Several penal codes re: probation prohibiting individuals from conducting certain communications with felons, minors, foreign nationals (in the case of espionage) and etc. See also, the oil embargo. >Show me the law on what *form* private communications must have, may >have, may not have, etc. Feel free to review any number of banking regulations that stipulate the nature and form of otherwise private dealings between two actors. >Show me the law on what *content* is permitted in private communications. See Generally: Criminal Law - Conspiracy. >Show me the law on *retention* of private communications. See financial record keeping requirements imposed even on private companies, import export firms, taxation, etc. See also, currency reporting requirements for other wise "private" transactions. See also, regulations for record retention in the transaction of firearms. etc. etc. >I can think of various laws about child porn, death threats, >classified secrets, etc., which affect some of the above, but these >are "clearly special cases" and it is a mistake to confuse laws about >child porn, for example, with disputing Mike's general point that the >law simply does not regulate private communications. Well, suffice it to say that there are a lot of "clearly special cases." >Not as to participants, form, content, or retention. See above. Free, encrypted, secure Web-based email at www.hushmail.com
Re: Amtrak & The War On Drugs
At 3:55 PM -0800 4/24/01, Raymond D. Mereniuk wrote: >On 24 Apr 2001, at 11:02, Ken Brown wrote: > >> You need phone numbers to buy train tickets? Why? Since when? The USA >> may be a wonderful country but over here where we we employ > >I believe in the original story the fellow bought a train from Phoenix >Arizona to Boston MA. This is a little different then buying a ticket >for a trip from Waterloo to Sevenoaks or London to Manchester. >Distance wise it is comparable to a London to Baghdad trip. However, it used to be SOP to buy train tickets at the ticket window--for cash and with no I.D. or phone numbers or SS numbers or forehead marks. It looks like the "temporary measures" to combat the "TWA 800 bombing" sorts of events, even though TWA 800 almost certainly wasn't a bombing, are now spreading to the trains. "First they demanded ID and SS numbers for the airlines, but I didn't fly so I did nothing. Then they demanded the same for trains, but I didn't take trains, so I did nothing. Now they demand ID and SS numbers for buses and public parking lots, and my trial is next month." Anyone paying in untraceable funds is Assumed to be a Suspicious Person. Anyone not giving credit card and SS information, likewise. And in Amerika, to be a Suspicious Person is probable cause for a search of bags and backpacks and purses, the Fourth Amendment be damned. (The taking without due process, covered by other constitutional rights, is another matter, though the conclusion that Amerika has become a kleptocracy is unchanged.) Those in other countries should not sit back and smirk. France, Germany, and Japan are already far along in their march to statism. Kanada is catching up. --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: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Re: Wendy Grossman: From Anarchy to Power: The Net Comes of Age
At 6:16 PM -0400 4/24/01, Matthew Gaylor wrote: >From: "Jon Lebkowsky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Wendy Grossman >Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 19:56:22 -0600 > >Shameless plug: I'm interviewing Wendy Grossman in Inkwell.vue on the WELL. >You can read the interview at: > >http://engaged.well.com/engaged/engaged.cgi?c=inkwell.vue&f=0&t=109 > >Wendy's a London-based writer with a couple of books coming out; the one we're >focusing on in the interview is _From Anarchy to Power: The Net Comes of >Age_, available from Amazon: Congratulations to Jon for getting an interview with a _journalist_! (I'm hoping to get an interview with Jon, so I can say I interviewed someone who interviewed a journalist.) Of course, in this day and age, it's the journalists and scribblers who fill the panels at conferences, and it's the journalists sought out by other journalists for comments on the Meaning of it All. One of our well-known journalists, a good one, was saying recently that he's been invited to many special conferences on cutting edge issues, libertarian technopolitics, etc. I guess I'll need to become a journalist to even be invited to my _first_ such event! Merely inventing a bunch of things and writing about them for the past 13 years on the Net doesn't hardly qualify for inclusion amongst the _journalists_! With the proliferation of "Oracle 8i World, the magazine for Oracle 8i Administrators" and "Python Times" and several hundred other niche computer magazines, maybe we'll _all_ have to become journalists just to fill the pages. (OTOH, I expect a shakeout in the b.s. magazines comparable to the bursting of the bubble for the dot gones.) --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: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Re: The anarchies my destination...
At 1:06 PM -0700 4/24/01, Ray Dillinger wrote: >On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Tim May wrote: > >>And I really did not get started on this path toward "crypto anarchy" >>because I was _seeking_ anarchy as some sort of utopian fantasy. In >>fact, I had largely moved away from politics by the mid-70s, and was >>not very political in the 1987-88 period when I figured out that the >>technologies then emerging would make new forms of anarchy nearly >>inevitable. > >I'll go as far as "workable". "Inevitable" is perhaps a bit strong. "Inevitable" in a sense analogous to how the invention of the printing press made certain societal changes (forms of anarchies, actually) "inevitable." -- the widespread dissemination of printed knowledge, with the resulting loss of monopolies on forms of knowledge by guilds, priesthoods, and kings. -- the spread of political tracts, calls for revolution, broadsheets, Samizdats, etc. -- the development of corporations and other large enterprises dependent on literacy and the printed word to disseminate orders, instructions, book accounting, etc. The spread of "book anarchy" was a profound development, as we are all taught. It led directly, and within only several decades, to a mostly anarchic religious schism: Martin Luther, Protestantism, independent Bibles in the popular languages of the time (Luther's German version, the King James version, etc.), and the explosion of sects into Lutheran, Calvinist, Presbyterian, Church of England, Baptist, etc. In parallel with the recent discussions of crypto anarchy, a "skeptic" in 1450, looking toward the coming changes predicted by some, might have wondered: "But I don't see how it will all work. I don't see how alternatives to the Church can give us the things we've become accustomed to. I'd like to see a detailed plan of how all of this is going to work!" That the future evolution of complicated systems is not easily predicted does not make the inevitability of change less likely. Books and printing altered the basic equations. A fork in the road appeared and the world veered in a different direction. Forks like this have happened many times. "And then things were different..." Importantly, books, magazines, Web sites, broadsheets, fliers, pamphlets, and so on form one of the _best_ examples of "anarchy" we have. (I mentioned this to David Friedman, that we don't need to go to examples from 10th century Iceland to find excellent examples of anarchies...they are all around us if we are able to open our eyes and recognize them for what they are.) The wide availability of tools to make completely voluntary and uncoerced transactions, regardless of the country or even continent of the participants is just such a fork in the road. Governments know this, too. Even if many government agents and consultants are bozos, some of them are smart enough to see what's coming. (I like to think we saw the implications several years before their consultants, like Dorothy Denning and the NSA and FBI folks did, but they eventually got the picture.) This is why the U.S.S.R. cracked down on copy machines, fax machines, etc. This is why the PRC is _still_ cracking down. This is why neo-fascist countries like France and Germany are banning free speech in order, they say, to save free speech. This is why the U.S. tried to limit crypto exports, hoped to get encryption even inside the U.S. restricted and backdoored, and is still gibbering about the dangers of uncontrolled "crypto anarchy!" (This was the third intended pun from this name.) >Certainly there are some statutes (mainly IP laws) that simply >cannot stand in the presence of a crypto-enabled people, and there >are some goods (information, entertainment, etc) on which monopolies, >including the monopoly granted by copyright, cannot exist. > >However, this is not the same as saying that anarchy (in terms of >a change in form of government) is inevitable. It simply says that >there are some things government (of *any* kind) cannot do when >people have access to cryptography. The inability to do those >things is not sufficient to substantially undermine government >power and authority. The implications of not being able to interfere in transactions are quite profound. The implications of not being able to tax certain transactions is also profound. How long it might take for a "tipping point" to be reached where _other_ parts of society are affected is debatable. Just as it was with books. Sure, the Catholic Church continues, and still continues. Sure, governments still exist. But the widespread use of reading and books changed the equation and led us to where we are today. This is all I hope for. I am not interested in "ab initio" anarchies, such as many hypothesis for asteroid colonies and parallel earths. Interesting to read about, but not interesting for implementation purposes. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED]Corralit
Trolling
At 1:11 PM -0500 4/24/01, Aimee Farr wrote: >Mike said, quoting me, quoting Tim: (I'm on lunch - billable hour sink this >place.) > >> Further, I don't think individuals owe any obligation to the law as to >> the participants, form, content or retention of private communications. > >Recognizing that the law does not agree with you, that's a valid opinion. Show me the law on who can *participate* in private communications. Show me the law on what *form* private communications must have, may have, may not have, etc. Show me the law on what *content* is permitted in private communications. Show me the law on *retention* of private communications. I can think of various laws about child porn, death threats, classified secrets, etc., which affect some of the above, but these are "clearly special cases" and it is a mistake to confuse laws about child porn, for example, with disputing Mike's general point that the law simply does not regulate private communications. Not as to participants, form, content, or retention. > > > > Finally, the law has an impressive track record, in stark >> contrast to 'crypto-anarchy.' >> > >> > ~Aimee > >I knew that would catch a fish. Indeed, you are obviously trolling. > > >~Aimee >Counsel for The Establishment Needless to say. No doubt active in the Waco area in narcing out illegal religions like the BDs. Sickening. --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: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Re: Fwd: James Bamford to be on Fresh Air tomorrow (April 24)
At 01:01 PM 4/24/2001 -0700, I wrote: >The Bamford interview is online at ><http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/fa/20010424.fa.01.ram> - not sure how long >that URL will be good. The interview is 42 minutes long - if you're busy and mostly interested in current events, skip to about minute 30, where he starts discussing Echelon (he describes it as "a big search engine"), drug intercepts (DEA pushes for lots of intel, NSA doesn't like that), competitor intelligence (Airbus vs. Boeing - he said NSA doesn't play that), personal privacy (says that it's difficult for NSA to get its job done without violating people's privacy, and that NSA's statutory duty to report crimes makes this harder), and recently identified Russian double agent/FBI counterintel specialist Robert Hanssen (a personal friend of Bamford's; Bamford doesn't dish dirt on friends or sources, but was very surprised to hear of the arrest). There's also a Flash-infected website at <http://www.bodyofsecrets.com>, which has some reference and bibliographic detail. -- Greg Broiles [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Organized crime is the price we pay for organization." -- Raymond Chandler
RE: Recording conversations and the laws of men
Tim's Latest Treatise said: > At 10:27 AM -0700 4/24/01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > (commenting on Aimee's words) > > > > >It sounds to me like you are suggesting gutting the threat models that > >should be used during the design phase of any communication system. You > >are implying that if there's a legal way of saying that something may > >not be recorded then being recorded is no longer a threat. That is not > >and never will be the case no matter what the court du jour may have to > >say about it. > > Just so. Regardless of "no phone recording" laws, people continue to > do it. Linda Tripp got caught in this, and only because she > publicized her taping of her phone conversations with Monica > Lewinsky. Millions of other people do it everyday. Many modern phones > and answering machines make it easier than ever. Like I could disagree with this one. > Thinking that "the law" will fix this problem (if it even _is_ a > problem!) is wrong-headed. I said NOTHING of the kind, just that the law does, every now and then, give you an advantage. Where it does, take advantage of it. > And the law has never stopped the NSA, CIA, and FBI from recording > and tapping at will (Shamrock, Echelon, Carnivore). Even if the tapes > cannot be used in court without a warrant, so what? They get what > they want by taping and tapping, whether they can use the results as > evidence or not. It was just an example, of limited application, based on one of the most restrictive state privacy statutes in the country. (WA) > Technological means are our best protection. Obviously. > "The laws of mathematics, not the laws of men." (I think Eric Hughes > came up with this, but I could be wrong.) Mathematical meditations, I understand. > >Further, I don't think individuals owe any obligation to the law as to > >the participants, form, content or retention of private communications. > >I don't see how the law can improve upon this opportunity for privacy. > >In fact, based on past performance, I would expect exactly the opposite > >effect. > > Again, just so. The laws about tape-recording conversations have no > basis in any moral theory I can support. If I choose to "gargoyle" > myself and have a tape recorder, even a video recorder, running at > all times, how is this doing physical violence to others? Okay, so aside from 'physical violence' law (broadly defined) has no purpose? Where were you BEFORE I want to law school, Tim? > (Even contractual issues are amenable to this analysis. If Alice > doesn't want to be taped in her interactions with Bob, she can > negotiate an arrangement that he turns off his tape recorders in her > presence. If he violates this contract, perhaps she can collect. Some > day this will likely be done via polycentric law, a la "Snow Crash.") Yes. You already know I have polycentric leanings. > Meanwhile, we don't need more stinking laws allegedly protecting our > privacy while actually interfering with our ability to make and form > voluntary relationships. Agree..and then some. > >> Finally, the law has an impressive track record, in stark contrast > >>to 'crypto-anarchy.' > >> > >> ~Aimee > >> > >I think an even more impressive track record is how people manage to > >create and operate economies and communications under any number of > >oppressive systems. Systems come and go and still people trade and > >communicate. I suppose they have no choice... > > These are the myriad anarchies I referred to in my post, "The > anarchies my destination." A thoughtful post. > Top-down rule from a strong man is actually computationally > expensive. Direct communication is more efficient. The street knows > this well. Like I could argue with this. > Kevin Kelly's book "Out of Control" is another book folks here > should read. My reading list is large enough already. :) ~Aimee
Re: [Fwd: YOU ARE INVITED: "Will Encryption Protect Privacy and Make Government Obsolete?" -- Next Independent Policy Forum (4/24/01)]
Quoting "Fred C. Moulton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: (snip) > See David Friedman's related essays: > > "A World of Strong Privacy: Promises and Perils of Encryption" > http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Strong_Privacy/Strong_Privacy.html > > "Contracts in Cyberspace" > http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/contracts_in_% 20cyberspace/contracts_in_cyberspace.htm > > "Anarchy and Efficient Law" > http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law.html. I read these essays: is this really representative of his best work? It seemed awfully rudimentary. In fact, I did a search on the NBER website for any real academic journal articles by (or even mentioning) him: nada. Now don't blow a gasket on me, but if this is as good as it gets I'd have to say he strikes me as more of a polemicizer/theorist than an analyst. His 'reputational enforcement model' seemed more like a way to wow the layperson than anything else: as presented here, it's kiddy stuff that tells me absolutely nothing. This might pass for rigorous scholarship at Santa Clara, but in a quality policy analysis program, even grad students couldn't get away with turning it in. Gotta love this quote: "This is not a full formal analysis of the dynamics of the model: indeed it is hard to see in what sense one can talk rigorously of dynamics in my simple model..." No shit. Where is it then. Where's the model that really means something. As far as I'm concerned, this is a shame: personally, I'd like nothing better than for someone to show that for "contracts in cyberspace in the future, public enforcement will work less well and private enforcement better than for contracts in realspace at present." But this just isn't it, folks. I'll keep on looking over his site since you people seem so sold on it. If you don't think I have anything useful to say about Friedman till I read the relevant books on Tim's list, fine. But if anyone wants to point me toward the hard core analysis here, I'd be delighted. Too bad I can't make it to Oakland tonight either, I'm sure it would have been fun. Especially the Q & A. heh. ~Faustine. 'We live in a century in which obscurity protects better than the law--and reassures more than innocence can.' Antoine Rivarol (1753-1801).
Fwd: James Bamford to be on Fresh Air tomorrow (April 24)
The Bamford interview is online at <http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/fa/20010424.fa.01.ram> - not sure how long that URL will be good. The book was released today - Amazon apparently shipped pre-ordered copies yesterday, mine hasn't arrived yet but is eagerly awaited. >From: "Tim Dierks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: James Bamford to be on Fresh Air tomorrow (April 24) >Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 14:24:12 -0700 > >James Bamford will be plugging his new book on the NSA, _Body of Secrets_, >tomorrow on Fresh Air, the NPR-syndicated interview show normally hosted by >Terry Gross. > >Check local listings for showtimes. >(Or: <http://freshair.npr.org/stationsFA.cfm>). > > - Tim -- Greg Broiles [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Organized crime is the price we pay for organization." -- Raymond Chandler
Re: The anarchies my destination...
On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Tim May wrote: >And I really did not get started on this path toward "crypto anarchy" >because I was _seeking_ anarchy as some sort of utopian fantasy. In >fact, I had largely moved away from politics by the mid-70s, and was >not very political in the 1987-88 period when I figured out that the >technologies then emerging would make new forms of anarchy nearly >inevitable. I'll go as far as "workable". "Inevitable" is perhaps a bit strong. Certainly there are some statutes (mainly IP laws) that simply cannot stand in the presence of a crypto-enabled people, and there are some goods (information, entertainment, etc) on which monopolies, including the monopoly granted by copyright, cannot exist. However, this is not the same as saying that anarchy (in terms of a change in form of government) is inevitable. It simply says that there are some things government (of *any* kind) cannot do when people have access to cryptography. The inability to do those things is not sufficient to substantially undermine government power and authority. Bear
RE: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
John Young wrote: > Aimee Farr spun: I spin, you lyre. > >Finally, the law has an impressive track record, in stark contrast to > >'crypto-anarchy.' This caught me a nudder fish. I'm going into my reinforced steel shark cage, 'cause this tells Mr. Big Fish could be behind him (Tim is like those three sharks with memory in that Deep Blue Sea movie.) > So law proponents ever adversarial, no matter the facts. Homework > on the exegesis of cryptoanarchy would demonstrate otherwise: > it is law (and its siamese twin, order) which appears whereever > cryptoanarchy rises to prominence in a people -- L&O a perfect > means to strenghening strangleholds. I WHOLLY RESENT THIS CYPHERPUNK COURT-APPOINTMENT TO REPRESENT LAW & ORDER AND ALL THINGS ESTABLISHMENT. You guys keep denying my petition to withdraw, wanting somebody to fight with. > Opposition to organized control of law and order is timeless, > spaceless. Time and space a conceit of L&O in the scientific > realm. > > Opposition to government is timeless and spaceless, or was > until the notion of imperial full employment was concocted, > imperialism coming to America during WW2. And now more > people work for government in the US than in any other nation > today, and most others of the citizenry get a piece of the dole > in one way or the other. > That does not mean there is not considerable anti-government > sentiment among the govs beneficiaries, perhaps the most > vociferous of gov critics are those who know it from the inside. > > This interior dissent, too, is bred by imperialism, with it incessant > interior struggle among it beneficiaries. > > It is no accident that cypherpunks was founded by and is fed by > dissident beneficiaries of government largesse and protection > from bad, bad people who give shit not for L&O in any disguise. > > National defense education, with it emphasis on training an > elite citizenry, has produced thousands of Jim and Jane Bells > still searching for what was promised the smart guys if they just > abided the rules. Their promisers chuckling at the bright-eyed > idiots who never knew what it was like to survive under > oldtime cryptoanarchy -- when keeping secrets from the > day's tax criminals was the highest accomplishment -- > especially the rats in their midst whispering rules of right > and wrong, what history proved and didn't, who was > first and who is clueless. > > Me, I'm an immortal, got medical and preaching licenses to > prove it, in the name of Anonymous, awarded by Anonymous. > > Teller lied, the NYT says, it was a young physicist who > designed the H-bomb, the very one who later became > a fierce opponent of nuclear weapons. A rat. John Young The Pied Piper - rats, and more rats, and rats, even rats in hats, rats pretending to be other rats, rats pretending to be one rat. Lions, Tigers, & Rats...oh, my! John Young. ~Aimee Attorney for Global Law & Order, under duress "...needs raidin'..."
Comm
AF Wrote: > > Further, I don't think individuals owe any obligation to the law as to > > the participants, form, content or retention of private communications. > > Recognizing that the law does not agree with you, that's a valid opinion. > I don't think that the law requires me to make all communications comprehensible or trackable or to get approval prior to creating the contents or keep copies for later use. Please explain where the law does not agree. Let's avoid the mess that comes along with calling some sort of active material a "communication" or the regulation that goes along with certain RF channels and stick with conventional text, voice, image sorts of communications. Break a communication into three phases : 1. Composition 2. Transfer 3. Receipt #1 is certainly legally unfettered - I can write, draw, speak whatever the hell I please. I can record it on paper, on a hard drive or yell it to the crowd at an A's game. #2 is more subject to attack than #1 but is legally unencumbered - I can address and transfer my data wherever I want to. I do not need to notify anyone, keep any records, nor am I obliged to make the transfer or contents observable. #3 it's when someone takes offense that the consequences of speech may be felt. This is where the fight is. It also happens to be, in the case of adequate precautions having been observed in 1&2, too damn late to object. I'm sure the law here in the US will try to adapt via a RIP-like approach. Technology won't stand still and wait for the law to catch up. Mike
Teller, Garwin, and H-Bomb
At 1:38 PM -0400 4/24/01, John Young wrote: > >Teller lied, the NYT says, it was a young physicist who >designed the H-bomb, the very one who later became >a fierce opponent of nuclear weapons. A rat. I just read this article--thanks for mentioning that it existed!--and find your statement above, that Teller lied, to misrepresent what the article said. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/science/24TELL.html?searchpv=nytToday The article says, amongst other things: --begin excerpt-- ...Edward Teller took a breath, sat down with a friend and a tape recorder and offered his views on the secret history of the hydrogen bomb. "So that first design," Dr. Teller said, "was made by Dick Garwin." He repeated the credit, ensuring there would be no misunderstanding. Dr. Teller, now 93, was not ceding the laurels for devising the bomb - a glory he claims for himself. But he was rewriting how the rough idea became the world's most feared weapon. His tribute, made more than two decades ago but just now coming to light, adds a surprising twist to a dispute that has roiled historians and scientists for decades: who should get credit for designing the H-bomb? ... The New York Times obtained a transcript of the recording recently from the friend with whom Dr. Teller shared his memories. Some historians of science praise Dr. Teller's tribute to Dr. Garwin as candid; others fault it as disingenuous. In an interview, Dr. Garwin said Dr. Teller was correct to include him among the bomb's designers, likening himself to its midwife. "It was the kind of thing I do well," he said of joining theory, experiment and engineering to make complex new devices. If Dr. Teller's version of events is right, he and Dr. Garwin were the main forces behind one of the most ominous inventions of all time, a bomb that harnessed the fusion power of the sun. Dr. Teller had championed the goal since the early 1940's, long before the atomic bomb flashed to life. His basic idea was to use the high heat of an exploding atomic bomb to ignite hydrogen fuel, fusing its atoms together and releasing even larger bursts of nuclear energy. But no one working at Los Alamos could figure out how to do that. Dr. Garwin arrived at Los Alamos in May 1951 from the University of Chicago, where he had been a star in the laboratory of Enrico Fermi, the Nobel laureate and arguably the day's top physicist. Dr. Garwin had been at Los Alamos the previous summer and, intrigued by the work, had come back for another atomic sabbatical. In the interview, Dr. Garwin recalled that Dr. Teller had told him of the new idea and asked him to design an experiment to prove that it would work - something the Los Alamos regulars failed to do. "They were burnt out" from too many rush efforts to build and test prototype nuclear arms, Dr. Garwin recalled. "So I did it." --end excerpt-- Tim's comments: the new information is welcome. A pity Richard Rhodes did not have access to this information when he wrote "Dark Sun," his excellent history of the H-bomb project. Teller has certainly never claimed, that I have seen, that he was the sole inventor. He was the champion, the driving force, as Garwin acknowledges. Garwin played an important role as an engineer of the working design, but such is the nature of teams. Why his role was never discussed publically until now, even by _him_, is interesting. Perhaps there were security clearance issues, or even personal security concerns (kidnapping of Garwin, for example). By the way, I consider Teller to be one of the most ethically forthright public figures I've encountered. He has argued _against_ classification of secrets except in rare circumstances (troop movements, submarine positions, nuclear bomb designs). I heard him make this point eloquently at a lecture I attended in 1972 or so. It always stuck with me. Whether people like or dislike the H-bomb, or whether they think Teller was the model for Dr. Strangelove [see note], these feelings have no bearing on his integrity. He spoke out forthrightly on what he considered to be the shortcomings of Oppenheimer, which earned him (Teller) many enemies, but his comments were his honest assessments of Oppenheimer's political leanings. Note: There have been several articles on the Net about who the likely influences for Strangelove were. Some say Herman Kahn, the American scientist and expert on escalation scenarios...reading "On Thermonuclear War" in high school was eye-opening for me. Others say Werner von Braun, especially with the heavy German accent Strangelove had. And others claim John von Neumann was an influence, as he was advocating a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the U.S.S.R. in the mid-50s. Edward Teller is also cited as a model. I believe Kubrick was coy to the end about who he modelled Strangelove after, and I also recollect that Kubrick once said Strangelove was a composite of many influences.] --Tim May
RE: The anarchies my destination...
Tim mysteriously leaves out the part when he was targeted for radicalisation by certain third-parties. *only kidding* before I am accused of trying to "trigger a raid." You say tomatoe...they say tomhatoe. You say needs killin'...they say needs raidin'... ~Aimee Tim May wrote: > And I really did not get started on this path toward "crypto anarchy" > because I was _seeking_ anarchy as some sort of utopian fantasy. In > fact, I had largely moved away from politics by the mid-70s, and was > not very political in the 1987-88 period when I figured out that the > technologies then emerging would make new forms of anarchy nearly > inevitable. > > (As I have explained several times, but will do so once again, I was > evaluating the business plan of Phil Salin, a friend who was trying > to get funding for an "information markets" company he called AmIX. > AmIX was essentially a 1987-88 verision of EBay, with more of a focus > on consulting services than Pez dispensers and Star Wars memorabilia. > It eventually got funding from Autodesk, the maker of Autocad, along > with its sister company Xanadu. Both eventually went out of business. > Ahead of their times, poor management, whatever. Anyway, I evaluated > Phil's idea and dug up some of Chaum's papers and applied the > concepts to create a hypothetical "Blacknet" market for corporate and > other information. Over the next few years, I developed the ideas for > a novel I was working on...never finished. As one example, I worked > out how image and soundfile steganography would work, and wrote > perhaps the first proposal for "LSB" stego. The implications were > pretty easy to figure out--every week or so from 1988 to 1991 > produced new conclusions about things Cypherpunks now take for > granted.) > > So, I don't present anarchy or crypto anarchy as "utopian," merely as > "nearly unavoidable." Which makes it interesting to study. Heinlein > called this the "if this goes on..." viewpoint. > > Issues of morality are usually pedestrian when compared to inevitability. > > > --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: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
RE: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
> Tim said, talking about 3rd party subpoena vulnerability: > > > We need to do our part to stop this kind of confusion. More people > > might be using *technological* means to protect their identity and > > privacy if they had less misplaced faith in the law protecting them. > > Wellthis sentiment goes DITTO FOR THE TECHNOLOGICAL WAYS & MEANS DEPT. > > First, the law can be used to the advantage of aforesaid 'technological > means,' often giving hints. For example, somewhat in the context of this > discussion, it seems possible to have electronic communication that does not > imply third-party permission to record. > It sounds to me like you are suggesting gutting the threat models that should be used during the design phase of any communication system. You are implying that if there's a legal way of saying that something may not be recorded then being recorded is no longer a threat. That is not and never will be the case no matter what the court du jour may have to say about it. Further, I don't think individuals owe any obligation to the law as to the participants, form, content or retention of private communications. I don't see how the law can improve upon this opportunity for privacy. In fact, based on past performance, I would expect exactly the opposite effect. [..] > Finally, the law has an impressive track record, in stark contrast to >'crypto-anarchy.' > > ~Aimee > I think an even more impressive track record is how people manage to create and operate economies and communications under any number of oppressive systems. Systems come and go and still people trade and communicate. I suppose they have no choice... Mike
RE: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
Mike said, quoting me, quoting Tim: (I'm on lunch - billable hour sink this place.) > > > Tim said, talking about 3rd party subpoena vulnerability: > > > > > We need to do our part to stop this kind of confusion. More people > > > might be using *technological* means to protect their identity and > > > privacy if they had less misplaced faith in the law protecting them. > > > > Wellthis sentiment goes DITTO FOR THE TECHNOLOGICAL WAYS & > MEANS DEPT. > > > > First, the law can be used to the advantage of aforesaid 'technological > > means,' often giving hints. For example, somewhat in the context of this > > discussion, it seems possible to have electronic communication > that does not > > imply third-party permission to record. > > > It sounds to me like you are suggesting gutting the threat models that > should be used during the design phase of any communication system. You > are implying that if there's a legal way of saying that something may > not be recorded then being recorded is no longer a threat. That is not > and never will be the case no matter what the court du jour may have to > say about it. Hell no I'm not. Just grepping for an example. I AM saying that in the design phase of a communication system, the legal ramifications are often ignored. Countless examples of where this has been detrimental. > Further, I don't think individuals owe any obligation to the law as to > the participants, form, content or retention of private communications. Recognizing that the law does not agree with you, that's a valid opinion. > I don't see how the law can improve upon this opportunity for privacy. > In fact, based on past performance, I would expect exactly the opposite > effect. Again, a valid opinion. > > > Finally, the law has an impressive track record, in stark > contrast to 'crypto-anarchy.' > > > > ~Aimee I knew that would catch a fish. > I think an even more impressive track record is how people manage to > create and operate economies and communications under any number of > oppressive systems. Systems come and go and still people trade and > communicate. I suppose they have no choice... I merely meant to emphasize that law should be taken into account more than it is, and never underestimated. ~Aimee Counsel for The Establishment
Recording conversations and the laws of men
At 10:27 AM -0700 4/24/01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (commenting on Aimee's words) > >It sounds to me like you are suggesting gutting the threat models that >should be used during the design phase of any communication system. You >are implying that if there's a legal way of saying that something may >not be recorded then being recorded is no longer a threat. That is not >and never will be the case no matter what the court du jour may have to >say about it. Just so. Regardless of "no phone recording" laws, people continue to do it. Linda Tripp got caught in this, and only because she publicized her taping of her phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky. Millions of other people do it everyday. Many modern phones and answering machines make it easier than ever. Thinking that "the law" will fix this problem (if it even _is_ a problem!) is wrong-headed. And the law has never stopped the NSA, CIA, and FBI from recording and tapping at will (Shamrock, Echelon, Carnivore). Even if the tapes cannot be used in court without a warrant, so what? They get what they want by taping and tapping, whether they can use the results as evidence or not. Technological means are our best protection. "The laws of mathematics, not the laws of men." (I think Eric Hughes came up with this, but I could be wrong.) > >Further, I don't think individuals owe any obligation to the law as to >the participants, form, content or retention of private communications. >I don't see how the law can improve upon this opportunity for privacy. >In fact, based on past performance, I would expect exactly the opposite >effect. Again, just so. The laws about tape-recording conversations have no basis in any moral theory I can support. If I choose to "gargoyle" myself and have a tape recorder, even a video recorder, running at all times, how is this doing physical violence to others? (Even contractual issues are amenable to this analysis. If Alice doesn't want to be taped in her interactions with Bob, she can negotiate an arrangement that he turns off his tape recorders in her presence. If he violates this contract, perhaps she can collect. Some day this will likely be done via polycentric law, a la "Snow Crash.") Meanwhile, we don't need more stinking laws allegedly protecting our privacy while actually interfering with our ability to make and form voluntary relationships. > > >> Finally, the law has an impressive track record, in stark contrast >>to 'crypto-anarchy.' >> >> ~Aimee >> >I think an even more impressive track record is how people manage to >create and operate economies and communications under any number of >oppressive systems. Systems come and go and still people trade and >communicate. I suppose they have no choice... These are the myriad anarchies I referred to in my post, "The anarchies my destination." Top-down rule from a strong man is actually computationally expensive. Direct communication is more efficient. The street knows this well. Kevin Kelly's book "Out of Control" is another book folks here should read. --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: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
RE: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
Aimee Farr spun: >Finally, the law has an impressive track record, in stark contrast to >'crypto-anarchy.' So law proponents ever adversarial, no matter the facts. Homework on the exegesis of cryptoanarchy would demonstrate otherwise: it is law (and its siamese twin, order) which appears whereever cryptoanarchy rises to prominence in a people -- L&O a perfect means to strenghening strangleholds. Opposition to organized control of law and order is timeless, spaceless. Time and space a conceit of L&O in the scientific realm. Opposition to government is timeless and spaceless, or was until the notion of imperial full employment was concocted, imperialism coming to America during WW2. And now more people work for government in the US than in any other nation today, and most others of the citizenry get a piece of the dole in one way or the other. That does not mean there is not considerable anti-government sentiment among the govs beneficiaries, perhaps the most vociferous of gov critics are those who know it from the inside. This interior dissent, too, is bred by imperialism, with it incessant interior struggle among it beneficiaries. It is no accident that cypherpunks was founded by and is fed by dissident beneficiaries of government largesse and protection from bad, bad people who give shit not for L&O in any disguise. National defense education, with it emphasis on training an elite citizenry, has produced thousands of Jim and Jane Bells still searching for what was promised the smart guys if they just abided the rules. Their promisers chuckling at the bright-eyed idiots who never knew what it was like to survive under oldtime cryptoanarchy -- when keeping secrets from the day's tax criminals was the highest accomplishment -- especially the rats in their midst whispering rules of right and wrong, what history proved and didn't, who was first and who is clueless. Me, I'm an immortal, got medical and preaching licenses to prove it, in the name of Anonymous, awarded by Anonymous. Teller lied, the NYT says, it was a young physicist who designed the H-bomb, the very one who later became a fierce opponent of nuclear weapons. A rat.
RE: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
Tim said, talking about 3rd party subpoena vulnerability: > We need to do our part to stop this kind of confusion. More people > might be using *technological* means to protect their identity and > privacy if they had less misplaced faith in the law protecting them. Wellthis sentiment goes DITTO FOR THE TECHNOLOGICAL WAYS & MEANS DEPT. First, the law can be used to the advantage of aforesaid 'technological means,' often giving hints. For example, somewhat in the context of this discussion, it seems possible to have electronic communication that does not imply third-party permission to record. Second, the law can be used indirectly to combat aforesaid 'technological means.' The law will ALWAYS reach to provide a remedy. Somebody recently proposed 'not keeping records.' This has been tried in a corporate context, and not having 'a good faith electronic record retention policy' can get you damage awards running into the millions in some jurisdictions. Forum-shopping is being put in question in a number of legal contexts. We are starting to see negative legal 'presumptions' imposed when certain technologies are used and so on, and so on. Third, the law changes. While 'crypto-anarchy' is a _process_ (quoting Tim) sustainable business plans are needed to lay the foundations. And, there is zero competitive advantage in knowing what the law 'is,' since won't stay that way. Finally, the law has an impressive track record, in stark contrast to 'crypto-anarchy.' ~Aimee
biochemwomdterror -- the latest in Congress
HOUSE TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE AND HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE Combating Terrorism House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Subcommittee and House Government Reform Committee's National Security, Veteran's Affairs and International Relations Subcommittee joint hearing on Combating Terrorism: options to improve the federal response examining H.R.525, Preparedness Against Domestic Terrorism Act of 2001; H.R.1158, National Homeland Security Strategy Act; H.R.1292, Homeland Security Strategy Act of 2001. Witnesses: Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md.; Rep. William "Mac" Thornberry, R-Texas; Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo.; Raymond Decker, General Accounting Office; William Ellis, Congressional Research Service; General James Clapper, the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction; General Charles Boyd, USAF, retired, U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century; Frank Cilluffo, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Amy Smithson, The Henry Stimson Center Location: 2167 Rayburn House Office Building. 3 p.m. Contact: 202-225-9446 http://www.house.gov/transportation or 202-225-5074 http://www.house.gov/reform **REVISED**
RE: Making the Agora Vanish
On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, James A. Donald wrote: >When I visited Cuba, I found that all the telephones accessible to an >ordinary cuban, or at least all the ones that I encountered, had a man with >a gun nearby, conspicuously visible to the person making the call, and in >one case someone with headphones listening in on the call, conspicuously >visible to the person making the call. > >Presumably the Cuban government found it very difficult to deter people >from "spreading rumors". I think a more suitable parallel would be to consider how difficult it would be to ban the use of telephones, especially in a time where few widespread, consumer visible applications exist. >Intimidation and censorship suffers from the law of declining returns. >[...] The same is true of governmental efforts to control cryptography. Agreed. Not reassured, though... Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
Re: The Crypto State
Ray Dillinger wrote: [...that he wasn't talking about anarchy...] > The only real difference is that the functions of government are > distributed instead of being vested in particular people. Which is pretty near a definition of anarchy according to my anarchist friends. [...] > Bell's "AP" paper may not have been where the seed came from > originally, but aside from pointers at some science-fiction > books with zero technical content and impossible economics > and cultures, there has been no trace whatsoever of any other > protocols for replacing government on this list. You want maybe a recipe? An instruction book for helping the state wither away? Try the Communist Manifesto, it's good. No really, it is, a great bit or writing. Of course it didn't actually come out right when they tried to bake the cake. As a description of what was happening in the world at the time it was brilliant, as a a program fro what to do next it was crap, and helped set up states which kept millions under tyranny and oppression for decades. There are no predictable rules or laws of history. [...] > What I've been able to do since is find that there are ways > to solve a bunch of technical problems So tell us the ways. [...] > there's > either no hint of how to actually implement nor any proof > that an implementation is possible, What "proof" can there be that implementation is possible? We can't even prove that a non-trivial computer program is correct, never mind a political program. Your name is maybe Hari Selden? In a real revolution (violent or otherwise) unexpected things happen. It's all up for grabs. History is contingent, not predictable, stuff happens, "events" take over, there IS NO ROAD MAP. There can't be a road map, it is totally impossible. You can have a weather vane, or you can stick you head above the parapet and see which way the wind blows. You can have thought-experiments, you can try things on for size in discussion, in models, in fiction, in fantasies, in the pub. You can have a basic set up principles that you intend to apply to whatever situation you find yourself. (Me, I'm a Christian. A Calvinist even. God knows the future but I don't pretend to. Also a Socialist - there, I said the S-word, you can all have a good laugh now.) Economists and so-called "political scientists" mostly don't know what's going on right now, never mind what will happen next. There is no road map, there is no proof, there is no protocol, all there is is people trying to get along as things change. Ken
