Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote: > (What might? Putting several of the main architects of competing systems > like Freedom, Mojo, Morpheus, Mixmaster, etc. together in a room with > plenty of blackboards, a lot of beer, and some folks like Lucky, Wei > Dai, Hal Finney, and others to hash out some of the tough issues and > maybe catalyze some breakthroughs. Looking at the topics, I see the > likely paper contributors will be academics and corporate > ladder-climbers.) That's what targeted publicity is for -- making sure the right people see the message and show up (and maybe publish something). While I didn't make it to the 2001 Berkeley workshop, I know that some of the Freenet developers were there. ZKS was well-represented. I think the Mojo people were there, though I could be wrong. That's a start. Then once everyone's there, the rest is a matter of (non)scheduling and beer ordering. (well, and Kahlua maybe). So what I should do now, I guess, is contact the Morpheus team and convince them to come. maybe submit something if they feel like it. -David
The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot
I'm writing a lot today. These last several days, actually. Maybe I got enough sleep, maybe the debate about how CFP has been taken over by the droids is inspiring me, maybe it's because I can't wait until I can get these drawings (talked about later) up on my soon-to-appear "virtual whiteboard" Web site. Whatever, what follows here (I'm writing this intro last) is probably one of the most important essays I've written in recent months. If most of you disgree, I'll know I'm truly out of touch. On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 08:25 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 05:44:39PM -0700, Tim May wrote: >> I won't pay these rates for _any_ conference. Greg Broiles hit the nail >> on the head: the only ones worth paying for are the ones with >> short-term >> economic payoff. For CFP, this probably means law firms hoping to get >> some business, or hoping to recruit some lawyers. > > CFP is still worth attending, but more as a social event nowadays. > It's started to become a corporate-privacy-officer conference. I was > chatting two weeks ago with a friend who's a CPO at one of the > valley's largest firms and my friend was talking about suggesting a > panel on "how firms can comply with european data directive stuff." > Not unimportant in a practical sense, but hardly interesting, or > cypherpunkish. So I guess my candidate submission for the P.E.T. workshop might not be well-received: "BlackNet; Case History of a Practically Untraceable System for Buying and Selling Corporate and National Secrets." The whole notion of "Chief Privacy Officers" shows how ridiculous things have become. For several obvious reasons we've talked about many times. (And the notion that companies like ZKS will survive by reinventing themselve as privacy consultants to comply with privacy laws is equally silly. Hint: Whatever companies need to meet privacy "laws" in Europe, Asia, and North America doesn't have much to do with PipeNets and extremely robust systems for high-bandwidth communication.) But I guess the vanished occupations of "Web Master" and "Web Mistress" had to morph into something equally silly. PLOTTING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF UNTRACEABILITY Look, this is all part of something I talked about at the June physical meeting in Berkeley: by failing to acknowledge the "high-value" markets for untraceability, characterized by such things as Swiss bank accounts and income-hiding, porn-trading rings, and information markets, the whole technology of privacy/untraceability gets ghettoized into low-value markets like "untraceable subway tokens" (wow, gee!), weak versions of proxy surfing tools, and boring attempts to get people to use digital money for things they don't mind using Visa and PayPal for. At the June meeting I drew a graph which makes the point clearly. A pity I can't draw it here. (Yeah, there are ways. My new Web page should have some drawings soon. But this list is about ASCII.) Plot "Value of Being Untraceable in a Transaction" on the X-axis. This is the perceived _value_ of being untraceable or private. Start with "little or nothing," proceed to "about a dollar" then to "hundreds of dollars" then to "thousands" then to "tens of thousands and more." (The value of being untraceable is also the cost of getting caught: getting caught plotting the overthrow of the Crown Prince of Abu Fukyou, being outed by a corporation in a lawsuit, being audited by the IRS and them finding evaded taxes, having the cops find a cache of snuff films on your hard disk, and so on.) Some examples: People will demonstrably get on planes and fly to the Cayman Islands to open bank accounts offering them untraceability (of a certain kind). It is demonstrably worth it to them to pay thousands, even tens of thousands, of dollars to set up shell accounts, dummy corporations, Swiss bank accounts, etc. For whatever various and sundry reasons. (They may be Panamanian dictators, they may be Get Rich Quick scamsters, they may be spies within the FBI or CIA.) They expect a "value of untraceability" to be high, in the tens or hundreds of thousands...or even much higher. Even their lives. Call this the "Over $100K" regime. I cite this because it disputes directly the popular slogans: "People won't pay anything for privacy or untraceability." (In fact, people pay quite large sums for privacy and untraceability. Ask Hollywood or corporate bigshots what they pay not to be traced.) People will also pay money not to be traceable in gambling situations. They gamble with bookies, they fly to offshore gambling havens, and so on. The _value_ to them is high, but not at the level above. If they're caught, they face tax evasion charges, maybe. Call this the "$1K-10K" regime. (The spread is wide, from low-rent bookie bets which even the IRS probably doesn't care much about to schemes to avoid large amounts of tax.) At lesser levels, some choose to pay cash for their video tape rent
JAG: The Show, The Cast and Crew, The Convention
Title: Press Release PRESS RELEASE Date: August 19, 2001 Organization: JAGnik Association PO Box 2000 Florence, Arizona 85232-2000 Contact: Barbara Badeaux Convention Coordinator Phone: (520) 868-1994 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web Site: www.JAGnik.com "JAG" Fans Worldwide Gather To Celebrate The Hit TV Series Florence, AZ, August 19, 2001 - On October 12th through the 15th at the Four Points Sheraton LAX in Los Angeles join die-hard JAGnik fans from the United States, Australia, Denmark, England, Italy and elsewhere to meet the stars and celebrate their enthusiasm for the hit TV series, "JAG," the story of the United States Navy's Judge Advocate General's program, at the JAGnik Invasion 2001. For six years and running, JAG, the overwhelmingly popular CBS television military drama has riveted millions of diehard viewers to their seats with outstanding programming. Terrorism, rape, murder, UFO's, women's rights, the Gulf War - JAG tackles them all like no other TV series has ever done. Now meet the stars, directors, writers, get autographs, and find out how they do it. If you are JAG fan, you can't miss this! The JAGnik 2001 convention - the 2nd one of its kind -- will host panel discussions with the cast and crew of JAG, as well as autograph sessions, a charity auction, and a "Charity Brunch" with the stars of one of the most popular programs ever produced. JAG's "Top Gun" stars are expected to be there. Heartthrobs David James Elliot as Lt. Cmdr Harmon Rabb, Jr. and Catherine Bell as Lt. Colonel Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie, who portray military legal eagles who investigate, prosecute, and defend Navy and Marine personnel around the world. Together with Patrick Labyorteaux (Lt. Bud Roberts, Jr.), John M. Jackson (Admiral, former Navy SEAL, Chegwidden), Karri Turner (Lt. jg Harriet Sims), Randy Vasquez (Gunny Victor Valendiz), Chuck Carrington (PO3 Tiner), and Trevor Goddard (Mic Brumbly) the lawyers explore issues facing today's military personnel. Schedules permitting, many of them plan to be there for you to meet. Meet people behind the cameras - writers, production staff - along with recurring stars and occasional guests too. Participate in panel discussions. Let them tell you how JAG develops from an idea into a one-hour action packed finished product. The autograph sessions, auction, and brunch will give the fans a chance to get to know and talk with the stars who portray their favorite characters. Go to on site locations where it really happens. Jagnik Invasion 2001 will be held October 12 - 15 at the Four Points Sheraton LAX in Los Angeles, CA. Information about the convention can be found at our website, www.JAGnik.com or by calling Barbara Badeaux at (520) 868-1994, or writing JAGnik Association, PO Box 2000, Florence, Arizona 85232-2000.
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Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 06:49:21PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > Washington _does_ listen to other than lawyers. The examples I gave > showed this to be true in the past, and almost certainly still true. > (And the SDI arguments were in many cases made by scientists, e.g., > Teller, Lowell Wood, etc.) Right, though I see that being the case less so nowadays. The reasons for this are many, and probably complicated, including the growth of the federal government, the subcommittee structure divvying up power in Congress, the rise of the permanent federal bureaucracy, and perhaps most important, the stunning growth in nonprofit/advocacy groups. Still, Congress and the agencies will invite stellar technologists and researchers and scientists to testify on occasion. A handful of congresscritters may even listen. But the rest will vote the way their parties/backers/constituents tell them to. I recall there's only one scientist out of 535 members of Congress, at least last I checked. -Declan
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
Jim is appealing. He's off to the Supremes, as I wrote about in June, after the 9th Circuit dissed him: http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,44567,00.html Don't recall who's handling it; I'd have to see if I can dig up those papers (and I just had my office repainted, so it's a mess). Robert Leen may be, which would make for an interesting situation, since he'd presumably have to argue that he was an incompetent lawyer -- but I don't remember. -Declan At 10:27 PM 8/25/01 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote: >So does anyone know who's handling Jim's appeal or is he proceeding in >forma pauperis, or is he declining to appeal? > >DCF > >At 11:41 AM 8/25/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >>Two consecutive (not concurrent) sentences, sez the judge yesterday. Jim >>made a statement to the court. Judge agreed with prosecutors' maximum >>penalties (otherwise sentences would have been concurrent). See Wired >>News, probably on Monday, for details. >> >>-Declan
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
BTW I'm sure Tim is upset he missed "Borderhack": http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46304,00.html Privacy advocate Tara Lemmey is CEO of Project Lens, a cooperative environment between government, public, and the private sector arenas at the converging point between society and innovation. She is also a founder of TrustE, a nonprofit organization focused on industry-based privacy practices on the Internet. See also: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45857,00.html -Declan
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 05:44:39PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > I won't pay these rates for _any_ conference. Greg Broiles hit the nail > on the head: the only ones worth paying for are the ones with short-term > economic payoff. For CFP, this probably means law firms hoping to get > some business, or hoping to recruit some lawyers. CFP is still worth attending, but more as a social event nowadays. It's started to become a corporate-privacy-officer conference. I was chatting two weeks ago with a friend who's a CPO at one of the valley's largest firms and my friend was talking about suggesting a panel on "how firms can comply with european data directive stuff." Not unimportant in a practical sense, but hardly interesting, or cypherpunkish. -Declan
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
Bill makes an excellent point. Journalists (especially at a place like the PFF conference, where technical content is practically zero and no news happens) are part of the attraction. Lobbyists and execs are more likely to agree to grace the event with their presence if journalists show up (CSPAN was there, as were probably 15 reporters). We're part of the, um, attraction, I guess. -Declan On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 05:24:31PM -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: > But PFF is also a Pundit-Con - it gets its value not only from the speakers > and attendees but also from the reporters who attend, and they're as > important a > part of the business expenses of the conference as booze and rubber chicken, > and there'd probably be fewer paying attendees without them. > Similarly, at PR-oriented computer conferences (Comdex et al.) that's the case, > while at academic conferences (Crypto in Santa Barbara, for instance), > they're not, and obviously at journalism-oriented conferences they're > the target paying audience so they're not comped. > > I suspect Tim's objection to paying high rates for conferences where > journalists are comped is partly due to the content and style of the > conference...
Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 06:39 PM, Jim Windle wrote: > On Sat, 25 Aug 2001 16:29:21 Tim May wrote: > >> >> I can think of some scientists who had enormous influences on policy, >> men like Szilard, Von Neumann, Fermi, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Teller, >> and >> a bunch of others > > As an addendum I would add Claude Shannon. In fact I can't think of a > single lawyer in the 20th century who had the long term influesnce on > society that either Shannon or von Neumann did. The list of other > influential non-lawyers might also be expanded to include Turing, > Godel, von Braun, Crick and Watson. Washington's myopia in thinking > olny lawyers are worth listening to is indicative of the type of > government we have. > Well, yes, there are many. I only even _tried_ to list a handful of the most important folks in just that one field: nuclear. Every field has its giants. And the ones I cited in just the nuclear field were not just scientists, they were policy advisors. Szilard's soliciting of Einstein to write the letter to Roosevelt, Einstein's letter, Fermi's policy work in the 1950s, Teller's lobbying for the H-bomb, Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project (and later antiwar lobbying), and Von Neumann's powerful arguments for building up the nuclear arsenal. (VN favored a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Russia with bombers.) The other examples (we could write all day listing such giants) were certainly scientists, but many had no interest whatsoever in policy. Kurt Godel, for example. Crick, as another. I don't recall Shannon having much interest in policy. Washington _does_ listen to other than lawyers. The examples I gave showed this to be true in the past, and almost certainly still true. (And the SDI arguments were in many cases made by scientists, e.g., Teller, Lowell Wood, etc.) --Tim May
Re: Anonymous Posting
Faustine wrote: > I think you mainly have your bloomers in a bunch because I told your > anonymous ass-kiss toady to get a spine. Why Faustine, you sound jealous! I'm flattered you hold my views in such high regard. I like Tim's posts for several reasons. They are to the point and often cut through nonsense. They usually have new facts or a new way to look at something which makes sense, but which I didn't think of already. And some times they are just entertaining. Most importantly, they don't waste my time. I'm not too delighted with the "I have friends who want to kill all Jews" type of remarks, but beggars can't be choosers. People carp about Tim, but I'd like to see anybody try to do one Tim May quality post every day for two weeks.
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 06:52 PM, dmolnar wrote: > [on the PET 2002 workshop] >> I'm skeptical. I haven't looked in detail at this one, but the one >> Choate forwarded twice to the list was filled with corporate folks on >> the committees. (Some of whom used to be list subscribers. Fine folks, >> I'm sure, but now it's a corporate task for them to on committees.) > > I think that all three refer to the same workshop. > > I'm not sure I understand this comment, though. Do you think that the > committee members are doing it solely because it's a "corporate task" > which they have been ordered to do? or that they've lost interest in the > research now that it is a "corporate task" to be on the program > committee? What exactly is the problem with "corporate folks"? > > I can't claim to speak for the committee members. From what I know of > the > co-chairs, however, they are not doing this simply because it is a > "corporate task." Both of them have been interested in this area for as > long as I've known them. As far as I can tell, their interest is > genuine. My point maybe didn't come across as clearly as it could (hey, even typing fast, it's a lot of work to make all points come out clearly, and the more I write, the more chance for unclear sections). The core technologies for "P.E.T." are basically what we've talking about, coding, and using for close to the past 10 years. Little is coming out of corporations. Even less from academia. More I started to write on this, but have deleted. If people want to hear the German academics talk about privacy technology, fine. Frankly, having been at my share of all-day Cypherpunks meetings, I doubt a 1.5-day workshop on what are essentially Cypherpunks tools is going to accomplish much. (What might? Putting several of the main architects of competing systems like Freedom, Mojo, Morpheus, Mixmaster, etc. together in a room with plenty of blackboards, a lot of beer, and some folks like Lucky, Wei Dai, Hal Finney, and others to hash out some of the tough issues and maybe catalyze some breakthroughs. Looking at the topics, I see the likely paper contributors will be academics and corporate ladder-climbers.) > > Now, it *is* being run as a straight-up academic workshop, with > Springer-Verlag proceedings, refereed papers, and that whole nine yards. > This has certain disadvantages. Long lead times between genesis of an > idea > and publication (not to *mention* implementation), for one. Arguably too > much emphasis on theory and citations rather than just "cypherpunks > write > code," for another. You can go after it on those grounds (and we can > argue > about that for another four or five messages if you want), but that > seems > to be distinct from talking about "corporate folks" on the program > committee -- have I missed something? This point you raise fits in closely with the names on the program list. As with Financial Cryptography and Information-Hiding, the field has become sort of "respectable." So now we have the Dutch Data Protection Authority and the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection and some universities represented so well. (It's actually just part of the sham of these conferences. These are not conferences where innovative _research_ is discussed. These are places where somebody's particular twist on other ideas, ideas which would barely rate a thread here on these mailing lists, is puffed out into an academic-looking paper.) > > It's my hope that workshops like this will help attract smart people to > work on the problems in remailers, implementing digital cash, and other > fun Cypherpunkish topics. People who've never even heard of > "Cypherpunks," > and who would otherwise go off and do number theory or something else. Look, people not already involved in this area won't spend $$$ going early to SF and paying for this workshop. You'll likely get some drones from Motorola and Intel who convince their bosses that this sounds important, and you'll get some Feds and other spooks who go to get up to speed on what to look for. If you think this is "outreach" for Cypherpunks, where are the Cypherpunks on the program committee. I count one, maybe 1.5 if Lance is still doing this stuff (last I heard, he wasn't, and he hasn't posted here in a very, very long time). The rest are academics and staid corporate types. I'll bet they'll quash any papers dealing with using crypto to undermine governments. It sounds pretty creepy to me. No doubt a lot of journalists will cover it. Most of them comped, no doubt. --Tim May
Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001 18:49:21 Tim May wrote: > > >Well, yes, there are many. I only even _tried_ to list a handful of the >most important folks in just that one field: nuclear. Every field has >its giants. > >And the ones I cited in just the nuclear field were not just scientists, >they were policy advisors. Szilard's soliciting of Einstein to write the >letter to Roosevelt, Einstein's letter, Fermi's policy work in the >1950s, Teller's lobbying for the H-bomb, Oppenheimer and the Manhattan >Project (and later antiwar lobbying), and Von Neumann's powerful >arguments for building up the nuclear arsenal. (VN favored a pre-emptive >nuclear strike on Russia with bombers.) > >The other examples (we could write all day listing such giants) were >certainly scientists, but many had no interest whatsoever in policy. >Kurt Godel, for example. Crick, as another. I don't recall Shannon >having much interest in policy. > Yes, I recognise that you were naming only the giants in a particular, though higly importnat field, who also had interest in "policy". My point was simply that certain ideas are so pwerful that their authors have influence on events whether or not they seek it. And that Washington policy makers must come to terms with those idea, whether or not they like. Jim Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
So does anyone know who's handling Jim's appeal or is he proceeding in forma pauperis, or is he declining to appeal? DCF At 11:41 AM 8/25/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Two consecutive (not concurrent) sentences, sez the judge yesterday. Jim >made a statement to the court. Judge agreed with prosecutors' maximum >penalties (otherwise sentences would have been concurrent). See Wired >News, probably on Monday, for details. > >-Declan
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote: > The hard part is getting beyond the canned speeches. For one thing, > these people (the SF writers especially!) are used to people running up > to them at SF conferences babbling to them about some story idea, so > they "put their shields up." I suspect I'm guilty of doing this. Not just at SF conferences. (Actually, I've been to too few SF conferences.) > This is one of the main reasons I favor "relaxicons." In SF circles, > these are, as you probably know, small cons with very few scheduled I'm just learning. I missed out on most of this "growing up," first being out of the country and then off in New Hampshire. Something to fix soon. Especially since you can meet interesting people at cons. (The con I mentioned, by the way, is http://www.vericon.org/ in case anyone's wondering. ) [on the PET 2002 workshop] > I'm skeptical. I haven't looked in detail at this one, but the one > Choate forwarded twice to the list was filled with corporate folks on > the committees. (Some of whom used to be list subscribers. Fine folks, > I'm sure, but now it's a corporate task for them to on committees.) I think that all three refer to the same workshop. I'm not sure I understand this comment, though. Do you think that the committee members are doing it solely because it's a "corporate task" which they have been ordered to do? or that they've lost interest in the research now that it is a "corporate task" to be on the program committee? What exactly is the problem with "corporate folks"? I can't claim to speak for the committee members. From what I know of the co-chairs, however, they are not doing this simply because it is a "corporate task." Both of them have been interested in this area for as long as I've known them. As far as I can tell, their interest is genuine. Now, it *is* being run as a straight-up academic workshop, with Springer-Verlag proceedings, refereed papers, and that whole nine yards. This has certain disadvantages. Long lead times between genesis of an idea and publication (not to *mention* implementation), for one. Arguably too much emphasis on theory and citations rather than just "cypherpunks write code," for another. You can go after it on those grounds (and we can argue about that for another four or five messages if you want), but that seems to be distinct from talking about "corporate folks" on the program committee -- have I missed something? It's my hope that workshops like this will help attract smart people to work on the problems in remailers, implementing digital cash, and other fun Cypherpunkish topics. People who've never even heard of "Cypherpunks," and who would otherwise go off and do number theory or something else. > I have another rant in mind, a rant about "affiliations." I'll just play > the script and you can figure out what the rant is about: [script and rant skipped] When my family lived in Saudi Arabia, we had our passports covered with a sticker which identified which company we were from. No foreigners in the country without a sponsor. The rant about "affiliations" reminds me very much of that...
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
Other coverage: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/25/1849248 On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 02:13:33PM -0700, John Young wrote: > Judgment converted to PDF: > > http://cryptome.org/jdb-hit.pdf (404KB)
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
Declan, you are still tarring me with messages addressed to me and cc'ed to cpunks. So I state: I want no direct e-mail to me about cybercriminals convicted or likely to be that. Anybody does that after I ask them not to I will consider working with the authorities, wittingly or unwittingly. Let me say that again, any reporter, priest, doctor, lawyer, or any other likely undercover agent which meets with me, sends me e-mail, telephones me, or faxes me without making that simultaneously public I will interpret as an attempt to entrap either for professional reasons or to help the authorities or both. Declan, I say to you, that means you. I think you are being used as a lure just as much as Jim Bell, CJ and a several more. Your journalistic conceit appears to be blinding you to the threat you pose. Recall our talk about this in Seattle when you warned me that our conversations could be someday revealed in court, and that you considered your telling me that as fair warning to be careful what I told you. This is not to single you out, I told the 60 Minutes reporters and other journalists what I'm saying to you here. None of you fuckers are free of being forced to tell what you have been told in confidence, and no fair warning relieves you of the obligation to tell those who confided in you just what you are telling others to save your own ass. All the privileged receivers of confidential information got to get used to going public before they are forced to testify in secret. That is happening now and will happen more as the homeland war heats up and nuts and tits get squeezed. Where am I going with this? I believe Jim Bell and CJ were shopped to the feds, and others are probably being shopped right now, whether on purpose or by inadvertency. I don't know who all is involved with this shit but it is damn well is going to come out. Best to just not pretend anymore that these privileged parties can or will keep information confidential. That means nobody.
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 01:32:31PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > I'll contact the CFP organizers and ask for one of their hundreds of > free passes to the panels, talks, and banquets. Let me know if you're turned down. BTW reporters have to pay for banquets and lunch/dinners at CFP. Some are $50. -Declan
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
We'll have up this weekend a 180-page report by the Defense Science Board on "Protecting the Homeland -- Defensive Information Operations," a study conducted in the summer of 2000, published in March 2001, which describes in detail multi-billion dollar proposals for combating threats to the US by technologies, if not politics, promoted on this list. It could hardly be more descriptive of the multi-agency operations deployed in the Bell, CJ and other cybercrime trials and proposes as well what must be done to change defense, intelligence, law enforcement and civil liberties legislation to assure that defense of the homeland takes precedence over long-established rights of the citizenry. Curiously, the document charges that DoJ and the FBI are mulishly resisting sharing investigative information with Defense by citing legal restrictions on allowing outsider access. (That could be smokescreening.) The report urges that Defense and Intel be given ready access to whatever information will assist their urgent task. One of the legal advisors to the task force was Stewart Baker, but there were several dozen industry and governmental participants. Here's a policy snippet: "Following the end of the Cold War, and the subsequent changes in the geopolitical climate, the United States now faces a different kind of threat. This threat is characterized by the ability of numerous potential adversaries to engage in an information attack upon the United States, enabled by the lower entry costs associated with such an attack. America's ability to attribute and respond is woefully inadequate to pose a significant deterrent to would be attackers. On the other end of the spectrum, early tactical indications and warning capabilities are virtually non-existent in cyberspace. These factors converge to create a newly and differently vulnerable U.S. homeland. It is the contention of the task force that immediate actions can work to decrease the threat and potential damage to U.S. national security, including infrastructures, institutions and individuals. The United States national security apparatus must continue to evolve over time to deal with these emerging trans-national threats, including trans-boundary threats where the differences between law enforcement and national defense, between foreign and domestic, between national and transnational, and between government and civilian are increasingly irrelevant."
Reporter's shield laws
On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 01:45 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 04:37:37PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>> Just because the "homeland war" -- which you seem overly fixated on --
>> will likely lead to an erosion of some liberties, it does not
>> logically follow that it will lead to an erosion of all of them. I
>> urge you and any other publisher/reporter/commentator types reading
>> this not to stand up for your First Amendment rights and not assume
>> that you must divulge unpublished information about sources if you
>
> Too many "not"s in that sentence. I obviously meant that you should
> stand up for your 1A rights as a reporter/publisher/commentator.
>
> That does impose a cost (mental and legal), true. But if you want to
> be a reporter/publisher/commentator, it's the cost of doing business.
>
As we've discussed before (and Declan is in agreement), the First
Amendment doesn't give some specific class of people ("reporters")
special rights not held by everyone.
_Some_ states have passed what I think are wholly unconstitutional
"shield laws" conferring special privileges on officially-recognized
journalists and reporters. Some states do not have such shield laws. I
don't know what laws Washington state has.
But there is no reason why Declan M. should be permitted to remain
silent on what he has been told if Vinnie the Rat is not also permitted
to remain silent about what he knows.
The whole notion that Declan is an Official Reporter but that John Young
is not stinks. And if John Young is a reporter, with special rights to
not reveal his sources or contacts, then so is Tim May. And so is Bill
Clinton, Linda Tripp, Gary Condit, and Vinnie the Rat.
(Some of those in Le Affair Lewinsky later wrote books and sold their
stories. They were not exempted from being asked to testify on who said
what to whom.)
If Vinnie the Rat has a contract to write an expose of his boss, John
Gotti, is he magically excused from testifying?
Why would Declan be exempt from having to answer questions about what
Jim Bell told him?
Not having been anywhere near the courthouse, and not having followed
the ins and outs of the trial closely, my hunch is that the prosecution
didn't think it needed this particular testimony, or that any testimony
Declan might have had about what he remembered of Jim Bell's phone calls
to him would be weak evidence or challenged as hearsay. I doubt that "a
reporter's First Amendment rights" entered into the calculation in a
primary way (though perhaps in a secondary way, as it was a potential
can of worms not worth opening for the limited probative value of
Declan's remembrances of a phone conversation.)
Shield laws are a bad, bad idea. And once extended to reporters, they
get extended in other ways the courts and the state like. To other
government agents, for example. To the Secret Service agents with
knowledge of what the President was doing in the Lewinsky case. This
happened. While fishing expeditions for gossip and dirt are not
desirable in a free society, exempting certain persons and offices from
illumination in court cases is even less desirable.
--Tim May
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
Declan - I've found that "Irfanview" is an excellent tool for reading lots of different graphics formats, including TIFF. Available at the usual download sites. At 01:00 PM 08/25/2001 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >John, >Can you post that in another format? Individual JPGs or GIFs or PDF? >My version of Photoshop can't open the TIFF file you posted. > >-Declan > > >On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 12:12:03PM -0700, John Young wrote: > > See 9-page judgment in TIF format: > > > > http://cryptome.org/jdb-hit.tif (262KB)
Gnutella scanning instead of service providers.
My fellow Cypherpunks, Ray Dillinger believes that scanning would assist oppressors as much as regular users. Joseph Ashwood agrees with this and further thinks that the Internet overhead of a scanner would be a serious problem. I still think that scanners would be effective. Here's why: Gnutella still exists, Napster doesn't! Security does not have to be bulletproof in all cases. Gnutella is a harder target than was Napster. There may be other reasons why Gnutella is alive and Napster is dead. I would think the ability to pin blame on the target might be another reason. A scan enabled Gnutella would be a much harder target than a central service provided Gnutella. The scan enabled version would be much harder to shut down due to various kinds of expenses - legal, administ- rative, politics, etc.. Not impossible to shut down - just harder, slower, and with various expenses we would like the oppressors to pick up :-) Also, with lack of centralization, it would be much harder to pin legal blame on the servers(users). - Much harder, slower, and politically expensive. This is generally a sort of economics problem for oppressors. As far as Joseph Ashwood's claim that the Internet overhead would be too much. Is his point exaggerated? Would it be possible to write low overhead scanners? I do not have the "skill set" to say. Maybe he is right, maybe not. Anybody got something definitive to say on this? Yours Truly, Gary Jeffers BEAT STATE!!! _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
Re: Secret Warrants and Black Bag Jobs--Questions
This discussion has touched on a variety of topics, some of them at cross purposes. If you catch one cop in black ninja gear inside your house, and shoot him, at least in California, you'll probably have legitimate self-defense claims, and if he did yell "Police", well, dead men tell no tales. Shooting a blue-uniformed cop inside your house will be much tougher to get away with, even though it's legally not particularly difficult. But it's extemely unlikely the cops would be doing a legally-authorized black-bag job with just one person - much more likely they'd have two or more, because sneaking into a Mafioso's house alone is dangerous, and as Dr. Evil points out, they're going to try very hard to make sure you're not home. This will probably include knocking on your door under some pretext, because if you *are* home, they'd much rather have you know that they're watching you than that they're trying to sneak in and black-bag your computer. And it'll probably involve having lookouts outside to radio the inside man with a "Cheese it, the Mafia!" warning if you show up at an inopportune time. Of course, if you shoot multiple cops in black ninja gear outside your house, even if they're engaged in a military assault, it does tend to annoy the rest of them leading to unfortunate consequences, even if you're doing so purely in self-defense. At 10:26 AM 08/09/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote: >(Here in California, several recent cases in Stockton and Bakersfield >where they got the wrong house. When the confused occupant moved in a way >they didn't like, they shot him dead. "Oops." >No murder charges filed against the SWAT members.) I have had cops break into my house, looking for a neighbor who had used my apartment number on his car registration instead of his, and been the confused occupant acting in a way they didn't expect, but they weren't a SWAT team; it was a 6am service of an arrest warrant, with three cops, and they'd been pounding on the door for about 10 minutes yelling for "Anthony"; I had gotten to bed at 3am, and when enough of the racket got through to wake me up, I initially assumed it was the neighbor's friends or non-friends looking for him, though the word "Police" got used enough I figured I had to go see what was up and staggered down the stairs. Cop was standing in my front hall, and I yelled at him to close the door so the cats wouldn't get out enough times to back him outside before we resolved the other issues. Unfortunately, I was still asleep enough that I didn't check out the warrant, so I don't know if he's a Home Invasion Robber or something else dangerous I should know to avoid, or just was being busted for failing to appear for a DUI charge which is no threat to me
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote: > First, $1500 per conference sounds way too high, even by today's > inflated standards. Just off the top of my head: O'Reilly P2P Conference, Standard Conference Fee: $1595 http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/p2pweb2001/pub/w/16/register.html RSA 2002 Conference: $995 to $1795, depending on when you register (Special $595 for "Academics", scholarships for students) Overheard at a conference business meeting: "What about special rates for attendees who are neither business nor academia?" "ARE there any such people?" Hey, at least DEF CON is still $50 ! although Black Hat is $1195 + $700 per training course. > some of the Big Luminaries: Esther Dyson, John Perry Barlow, Mitch > Kapor, etc. They upgraded the venue, raised the rates, and sought > corporate sponsorship. So the rates rose. (And the Luminaries are, to my By the way, in case anyone knows Neal Stephenson, I know a science fiction conference which would love to invite him. (Yes, I've read his web page, yes, it's a lost cause, but writing of luminaries...) > CFP could have been a conference where tech types mingled with policy > types. Alas, very few of the Cypherpunks meeting folks ever go to the > CFPs, even when they're held locally to the Bay Area. > Mostly lawyers and spooks. There was that workshop on "Privacy by Design" at the 99 or 00 CFP, wasn't there? The one report I had from that was not favorable, but it's not a *bad* idea. This year, there's a workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies being held immediately prior to CFP in the same building. Maybe this will lead to more interaction. http://www.pet2002.org/ (Disclaimer: one of the co-chairs is a co-author of mine. So yeah, this is thinly disguised plugging for the workshop. No, I don't know how much it will cost.) > I'll probably attend the next CFP the way I attended the very first > one...by sitting in the comfortable chairs in the lobby area. Well, come a few days earlier and sit in comfy chairs for PET, while you're at it... -David
Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
Declan wrote: On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 06:05:04PM -0400, Faustine wrote: > Great points. If you're looking to make a difference re: cypherpunk and >pro-libertarian issues and have a scientific and practical streak, why not >get an advanced degree in policy analysis instead? You get a rock-solid > grounding in a number of critical disciplines, and put yourself in a > position to seriously affect policy on the broadest possible stage. >Alas, the best policy analysts I've seen are lawyers. Folks in DC, at >least,look down at people who got an easier "policy analysis" degree as >people who couldn't or didn't want to go to law school. >-Declan True, if you don't pick your program carefully, it's entirely too possible to end up with a nebulous grab bag of an education that doesn't amount to much. It's all in the school, really. And I agree, there are some fantastic lawyer-analysts out there. But the ones I really admire are the mathematician-analysts, the hard-science analysts: they tend not to hog the limelight like some of their more voluble counterparts, but their influence is still enormous. It's kind of interesting to see how the field evolved and grew out of the strictly military/operations research stuff in the 50s into what it is now. It's still evolving, which is part of what makes it so exciting. I don't think what I'm doing is any easier than law school, quite the contrary! Maybe it's better to say it *can* be easier than law school--and often is-- but doesn't have to be if you're in the right place and have some purpose behind your choices. And I hope I didn't sound too down on studying law. I took a graduate class in constitutional law myself and spent a semester learning to write briefs, getting acquainted with West's Law Finder, etc. just because it's so important. I'd definitely recommend that much to anyone. ~Faustine.
Re: Security Against Compelled Disclosure
I realize this discussion was a couple of weeks ago, but I'm just catching up to it now :-) Ignoring the flamage and the inter-listmanager discussions, if possible, I'd like to address the problem of removing attachments. Removing big attachments is one thing, but there are a number of posters whose mail programs use MIME in ways that are likely to get removed, even if they're just using it for PGP signatures. While I'd prefer to encourage such people not to use formats like that, they *do* happen (especially on the remailer-operators list, where each different sub-version of Mutt seems to use a different format...) Tim May periodically flames the users of attachments, and while I agree that binary attachments are often non-portable and non-readable by many people, there are attachments that are just text with MIMEage headers around it, which are perfectly fine - if your reader can't do anything useful to display it, it *should* be able to show you the raw message body and let you read around the junk, just as you'd probably read around PGP signature headers. Bill At 08:29 AM 08/04/2001 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: >On Sat, 4 Aug 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > > You fool. One of the cypherpunks nodes removed the attachment. > >Actually they should ONLY be removing attachments to their subscribers, if >they are removing attachments in general then they are breaking the >contract. > >More over, the size limitations for messages to the CDR's was agreed to be >1M minimum over a year ago. > >Check the archives. > > > Sending attachments to the distributed cypherpunks list when at least > > one node remove them is about as useful as, well, arguing with Choate.
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 03:19:49PM -0400, dmolnar wrote: > This year, there's a workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies being held > immediately prior to CFP in the same building. Maybe this will lead to > more interaction. I'm looking forward to that. Wish I had made the first one. > Well, come a few days earlier and sit in comfy chairs for PET, while > you're at it... Tim, if you don't want to pay the admission fee, why don't you go as a journalist/columnist/commentator? It'll help you get started down the pundit circuit. :) -Declan
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Re: Voluntary Mandatory Self-Ratings and Limits on Speech
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Sampo Syreeni wrote: > Agreed. As Tim said, one first needs to show that there is a rights > violation, and that harm is indeed being done. In fact I'm of the opinion > that even when that *can* be achieved, it's still not quite ok to regulate > if the harm is not immediate -- even if violent entertainment does cause > violence, and people are dying because of it, you need to show that the > subjects are not left a choice, but are compelled to act violently. Probably > you'd need to show that they've been forced/tricked into watching the stuff > in the first place. None of that can be done in the case of "entertainment > unsuitable for young eyes", of course. Hume's Fork. You have a logical fault in your thinking. -- natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::>/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
Two consecutive (not concurrent) sentences, sez the judge yesterday. Jim made a statement to the court. Judge agreed with prosecutors' maximum penalties (otherwise sentences would have been concurrent). See Wired News, probably on Monday, for details. -Declan
...and don't cc: individuals!
On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 12:56 PM, someone wrote:
> I'd appreciate your not addressing mail to me concerning
> Jim Bell, though that may be due to the way your mailer
> is set up to respond to cpunk mail.
>
> I got subpoenaed to the grand jury and trial because
> Jim Bell's responses to my messages to cpunks were
> addressed to me and cc'ed to cpunks, just as yours
.
> And I will ask again to all readers in the universe: do not send
> me private e-mail about Jim Bell, CJ, or anybody likely to be a
> target of the SOBs working cybercrime-rich territory. Post
> your stuff to a public forum, and do not cc me.
>
And I urge people to spend the extra 10 seconds it takes to edit out all
addresses except the CDR node they are sending their message to. (I have
to do this with my mailer, and I nearly always manage to edit out all of
the various cc: and extraneous To: entries. Sometimes in haste I just
hit "Reply" and forget to edit the fields. Mostly I do.)
The reasons for this are two-fold, not even counting "someone's" valid
point about ignorami claiming "direct communication":
1) Everyone is getting the list, right? Except for rare cases when
someone not subscribed to the list is copied as a courtesy, there is no
need for them to receive a separate mailed copy and a mail-exploder
copy. ("Robb, we may have another problem brewing on the Thought
Criminal list...that smart-ass May just used the word "exploder" in a
message.")
2) Editing out the extraneous cc:s helps to stop _others_ from further
proliferating extra copies. (I've seen messages to Cypherpunks with half
a dozen cc: entries, all to otherwise-subscribed members.)
To paraphrase one of the Orwellian barnyard animals : "Two copies bad."
My mailer allows me to just type "cy" in the To: field and it auto-fills
with its best guess of what the address is. It also shows, after a
delay, a pop-up of other possible addresses. Or cut-and-paste is easy.
(I send traffic out to [EMAIL PROTECTED], even if it arrives via
another node. So I like the auto-fill more than cutting-and-pasting.)
Others may have macros which auto-type an address easily. Or even macros
and scripts which discard all non-cypherpunks addresses from a reply.
In any case, it only takes about 10-20 seconds, tops.
--Tim May
RE: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
I don't always monitor folders, for me a CC is a courtesy. ~Aimee > 1. Email sent individually to someone reaches them faster than > when replying to the list. I've often had half-day lag times in > the past with cypherpunks. > > 2. Email sent individually to someone will reach them when the > list is offline. This happened to me earlier this month when > my cpunx node was offline for three or so days. > > 3. In my case, I subscribe under a different (but obvious) address > than my well.com one. If copied on a reply, I'll see it sooner than > than if I open the cypherpunks folder on my *nix machine. > > Naturally some folks (John, Tim) have expressed a preference not > to be copied on messages. > > -Declan
(Corrected URL) Re: Redirection server (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Sat Aug 25 07:38:53 PDT 2001 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Redirection server -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Sorry, the URL should have been http://www.geocities.com/cryptosw DT -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: Hush 2.0 wmIEARECACIFAjuHuH0bHGRhdmlkdGhvbXBzb25AaHVzaG1haWwuY29tAAoJEKWWfBJh okF2H/kAnif+c54eoLPa+EherYXD1o4wlbwHAJ9N6b4G4X6XZ97ulR5sYyaQKeNyDw== =LiQY -END PGP SIGNATURE- Free, secure Web-based email, now OpenPGP compliant - www.hushmail.com
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 07:59 AM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 23, 2001 at 04:14:04PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
>> Meanwhile, don't expect to see me at the next CFP conference! Plenty
>> of
>> comped scribblers, though.
>
> CFP is in SF next year, so you may want to stop by.
>
> As for "comped scribblers," I am one. But look at it from a
> journalist's perspective: We may attend two conferences a week, say at
> $1,500/per. Rough estimates, then, would be over $150,000 a year, more
> than most journalists make.
>
> Paying that much in conference fees is not feasible, and conference
> organizers generally understand this and let us in free (we may pay for
> meals) in exchange for publicity.
>
First, $1500 per conference sounds way too high, even by today's
inflated standards.
Second, I can't believe there are 100 such conferences a year! If you
are going to 2 conferences per week for most of a year, you're going to
way too many conferences!
Third, even scaling back the prices and numbers, I wasn't suggesting
that no journalist be comped. Just that comping nearly a third or more
of all attendees says something is out of whack.
Fourth, as for publicity, I don't recall seeing hundreds of articles
about the last CFP I attended ('97, I think). And I know for a fact that
a significant fraction of all the attendees (several hundred) were
comped. Except for a handful of articles by the Usual Suspects, the
organizers were getting a small bang for their buck.
Conferences are subject to market forces. If organizers want to comp a
lot of journalists and charge amounts that only corporate law firms will
be willing to pay for (probably charging-back some of their clients),
then their model may be working.
I see this in another conference I used to attend regularly (but won't
name, because search engines may cause my critique to get back to the
organizers, who may stop inviting me...and I haven't given up on it
completely yet). This conference started out in the 80s being
affordable, sort of like science fiction cons used to be. Fairly rustic
accommodations, fairly basic meals. Then they had the chance to invite
some of the Big Luminaries: Esther Dyson, John Perry Barlow, Mitch
Kapor, etc. They upgraded the venue, raised the rates, and sought
corporate sponsorship. So the rates rose. (And the Luminaries are, to my
mind, not worth listening to. I really have gotten fed up hearing Esther
Dyson flit in to a conference, shmooze in the equivalent of the green
room with other Luminaries, give a canned speech about cyber rights or
computing in Russia, and then flit out to her next appearance. For this
I am expected to pay exhorbitant conference fees? No thanks.)
CFP could have been a conference where tech types mingled with policy
types. Alas, very few of the Cypherpunks meeting folks ever go to the
CFPs, even when they're held locally to the Bay Area.
Mostly lawyers and spooks.
But there are more than market forces at work, too. For one thing, the
tax laws don't allow folks like me to deduct our attendance fees in the
same way law firms (and even general corporations) can. This is wrong.
I'll probably attend the next CFP the way I attended the very first
one...by sitting in the comfortable chairs in the lobby area.
--Tim May
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Eugene Leitl wrote: > Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 18:41:23 +0200 (MET DST) > From: Eugene Leitl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To: John Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: CDR: Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison > > On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, John Young wrote: > > > Motherfucking sonsofbitching shiteaters. > > If this supposed to have been deterrence, it fully backfired. It > introduced polarization, and makes acts as Mc Veigh's less loony. > > As a direct result of this decision people will get killed eventually. Actually, people have already been killed as a result of this action, when seen (as it should be) as just part of the big picture. This is the kind of thing which breeds Tim McVeighs by the truckload - as well as supporters for the financial needs of the trials... -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place...
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
John, Can you post that in another format? Individual JPGs or GIFs or PDF? My version of Photoshop can't open the TIFF file you posted. -Declan On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 12:12:03PM -0700, John Young wrote: > See 9-page judgment in TIF format: > > http://cryptome.org/jdb-hit.tif (262KB) > > In addition to 10 years Jim was also fined $10,000 due > immediately and faces three years of probation. No > computer use and a long list of other prohibitions > including "no direct or indirect contact with the > victim in this case, Special Agent Jeff Gordon." > > Motherfucking sonsofbitching shiteaters.
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 10:51:28AM -0700, Eric Murray wrote: > Too bad no technical people were called upon to explain > how "group reply" works and why many people send copies > to both the original poster and to the list without intending > any direct communication with the poster that they're replying > to. Of course that would not have served Robb's purposes... Right. Jim's only witness called in his defense was, well, Jim. Let me speak up in defense of replying to the poster and the list in at least some cases. Obviously replying to a long To: line of a dozen people is just poor manners. But there are at least three advantages that come to mind when copying the original poster: 1. Email sent individually to someone reaches them faster than when replying to the list. I've often had half-day lag times in the past with cypherpunks. 2. Email sent individually to someone will reach them when the list is offline. This happened to me earlier this month when my cpunx node was offline for three or so days. 3. In my case, I subscribe under a different (but obvious) address than my well.com one. If copied on a reply, I'll see it sooner than than if I open the cypherpunks folder on my *nix machine. Naturally some folks (John, Tim) have expressed a preference not to be copied on messages. -Declan
Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001 08:39:06 Tim May wrote: >as I think lawyers generally create entropy and >inefficiency, no matter their intentions. "Lawyers are like nuclear weapons, the other side has theirs, so I have to have mine. But once you use them they fuck everything up." 'Larry the Liquidator" Garfield in "Other People's Money" That seems pretty accurate to me. Jim Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com
RE: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
I've been typing in the cpunks address in reply for months, and don't mind, after reading about a host of problems associated with automatic replies and cc's and hidden header information that doesn't show up kiddie-script mailers. And nothing I've written about avoiding private contact with Jim Bell is meant to diminish support for the entrapped anti-hero who deserves widest possible attention and backing no matter your personal opinion of his seeming stupidities in taking the feds poisoned bait. This was a show trial which had little to do with Jim Bell's piddlings. These varmints are going after bigger game using Jim as a lure. Still it was a pleasure to meet Jim in Seattle surrounded by the mighty US pro-terrorist forces, him in his ruppled prison blues, the terrorists in camouflage suits and ties, going home at night, bragging about winning the endless war against perps, nervously double-checking their homeland defenses. The court's inhuman form-based judgment makes me want to puke at its futile avoidance of broad personal responsibility, London and Tanner signing for the undercover cowards up and down the nationwide war-chart.
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
Judgment converted to PDF: http://cryptome.org/jdb-hit.pdf (404KB)
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 09:38:34AM -0700, Tim May wrote: > Granted, the conference gets publicity. But, presumably, the magazine or > other outlet gets readers and viewers. A two-way street, right? Maybe. But so far, market forces have prompted few conferences to try to push journalists around and try to make this argument. I covered PFF's Aspen conference this week. If I had to pay $800, I probably wouldn't have gone. > Frankly, I don't understand why CFP doesn't just accept the inevitable > and move the conference to Washington, D.C. permanently. Tim, you're not thinking like a Washingtonian. The point of having CFP held in other cities (and, in the case of Toronto, another country last year) is so Washingtonians get a nice junket. -Declan
PETA gets control of parody peta.org domain, says appeals court
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46313,00.html Ethical Treatment of PETA Domain By Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 2:00 a.m. Aug. 25, 2001 PDT WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court has ruled that a website titled "People Eating Tasty Animals" is not only a bad joke, but also an unlawful one. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said this week that the peta.org domain name, registered in 1995 by a man who planned to parody the nonprofit group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, was an illegal trademark infringement. Michael Doughney's peta.org parody site lampooned vegetarianism -- which the real PETA insists upon -- and applauded carnivorism, dubbing itself a tongue-in-cheek "resource for those who enjoy eating meat, wearing fur and leather, hunting and the fruits of scientific research." (PETA opposes medical research on animals even in cases where human lives could be saved.) The site's not-so-subtle mockery was red meat to PETA officials, who promptly sued, convinced a federal judge they were right, and then demanded Doughney pay them over $300,000 in attorney's fees and court costs, including photocopying, faxes, courier services, postage, travel, mileage, tolls and parking, long distance telephone calls and "miscellaneous" items. [...] - POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ - - End forwarded message -
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, John Young wrote: > Motherfucking sonsofbitching shiteaters. If this supposed to have been deterrence, it fully backfired. It introduced polarization, and makes acts as Mc Veigh's less loony. As a direct result of this decision people will get killed eventually.
The Choatebot: Alive and prolific
If anyone needed further proof that Jim Choate is suffering from an advanced form of message-forwarding-related-dementia, or is a 'bot sent to infest cypherpunks, consider the below. Recently we saw two call-for-papers messages for the 2002 Financial Cryptography conference forwarded to cypherpunks. Both were identical (except for headers). Yet Choate forwarded both: One on Tuesday evening and the other on Wednesday morning. The reason for this strange behavior is left as an exercise for the reader. -Declan Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:36:29 -0500 (CDT) From: Jim Choate <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: CFP: Financial Cryptography '02 (fwd) Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 07:45:47 -0500 (CDT) From: Jim Choate <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: CFP: Financial Cryptography '02 (fwd) Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 07:59 AM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > As for "comped scribblers," I am one. But look at it from a > journalist's perspective: We may attend two conferences a week, say at > $1,500/per. Rough estimates, then, would be over $150,000 a year, more > than most journalists make. > > Paying that much in conference fees is not feasible, and conference > organizers generally understand this and let us in free (we may pay for > meals) in exchange for publicity. > A couple of more words on this issue: Granted, the conference gets publicity. But, presumably, the magazine or other outlet gets readers and viewers. A two-way street, right? "Wired" and "Wired News" are businesses. If covering CFP is good business, paying their costs to attend sounds like a sound business decision. Honestly speaking, I see a lot more economic justification for Terra-Lycos to pay $600 (or whatever) for Declan's registration fees, and then count these as business costs, than I see economic justification for Tim May, say, to pay $600 to attend (and not be able to deduct it in any way). Which is why conferences like CFP mostly end up with a predictable mix of lawyers, government officials (probably comped to attend, though I don't know this), and journalists. And which is why the panels end up with a lot of journalists pontificating to each other. (Based on the two CFPs I attended...) Frankly, I don't understand why CFP doesn't just accept the inevitable and move the conference to Washington, D.C. permanently. --Tim May
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 09:02:06AM -0700, Tim May wrote: > First, $1500 per conference sounds way too high, even by today's > inflated standards. Tim, you haven't been to that many commercial conferences recently. I spoke at Internet World last month, and that's exactly how much it is. Even given the economic downturn, they haven't dropped the price. It's still $1,500 for the fall IW: http://www.internetworld.com/events/fall2001/conf_reg.php > Second, I can't believe there are 100 such conferences a year! If you > are going to 2 conferences per week for most of a year, you're going to > way too many conferences! Maybe. But here in DC, there are scores of such conferences each year, and I could easily go to one or two a week. Some of my colleagues at other news organizations, like National Journal Tech Daily, do that. Even "nonprofit" conferences are still pricey: http://www.abanet.org/annual/2001/registration.html $650.00 http://www.cfp2001.org/php/control/main.php?l1=2 $685 > Third, even scaling back the prices and numbers, I wasn't suggesting > that no journalist be comped. Just that comping nearly a third or more > of all attendees says something is out of whack. Probably. Usually there are only a few (~20) journalists who are actually going to cover the event. -Declan
Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 07:41 AM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 06:05:04PM -0400, Faustine wrote: >> Great points. If you're looking to make a difference re: cypherpunk >> and pro- >> libertarian issues and have a scientific and practical streak, why not >> get >> an advanced degree in policy analysis instead? You get a rock-solid >> grounding in a number of critical disciplines, and put yourself in a >> position to seriously affect policy on the broadest possible stage. >> Not for > > Alas, the best policy analysts I've seen are lawyers. Folks in DC, at > least, > look down at people who got an easier "policy analysis" degree as people > who couldn't or didn't want to go to law school. > And then there are those who care so much about others (whales, persyns of color, and other living things) that they get a "History of Consciousness" degree from here at UC Santa Cruz. Where else could they study under unreconstructed communists like Bettina Aptheker (daughter of militant communist Herbert Aptheker) and Angela Davis? And they get to remain in their beloved Santa Cruz afterwards, waittressing at Zachary's! I can't honestly say that I wish all of the lawyer wannabees here on the list good luck, as I think lawyers generally create entropy and inefficiency, no matter their intentions. But at least they ought to think long and hard about their career path and which schools will help them the most. --TIm May
Re: Voluntary Mandatory Self-Ratings and Limits on Speech
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: > On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 11:02:09AM -0500, Jim Choate wrote: > > No, no 'harm' occurs in that situation. > > Depends on what you mean by "harm." Exactly. Thank you for agreeing with me, as well as admitting that your argument is flawed because of it's relativism. You're 'definition' of harm is so broad that it's useless. -- natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::>/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
Re: Not black helicopters, but dark green ones ( Off Topic )
On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 10:49:57AM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > shitheads would fly over as low as they could. I've seen A10's, > helicopters and fighters. They're really annoying when you're trying to > cast a fly and enjoy some serene isolation. They should test their shit > in Macedonia or Nevada. Next time I'll bring my particle beam weapon and Some impressive-but-annoying A-10s blasted over me last month while I was in Nevada, nearing the California border en route to Death Valley: http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/death-valley.html http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/death-valley-sand-dunes.html Guess there's just Macedonia left? -Declan
Re: Voluntary Mandatory Self-Ratings and Limits on Speech
On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 11:02:09AM -0500, Jim Choate wrote: > No, no 'harm' occurs in that situation. Depends on what you mean by "harm." If I can't pay my rent, I go bankrupt, I can't put my kids through college, I lose my life savings and my respect in the community, and get divorced, etc. -- some folks might count that as harm. I would not say it is harm that has a legal cause of action. (What am I doing wasting my time correcting Choate? Sigh.) -Declan
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
See 9-page judgment in TIF format: http://cryptome.org/jdb-hit.tif (262KB) In addition to 10 years Jim was also fined $10,000 due immediately and faces three years of probation. No computer use and a long list of other prohibitions including "no direct or indirect contact with the victim in this case, Special Agent Jeff Gordon." Motherfucking sonsofbitching shiteaters.
Re: Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
Eugene, I'd appreciate your not addressing mail to me concerning Jim Bell, though that may be due to the way your mailer is set up to respond to cpunk mail. I got subpoenaed to the grand jury and trial because Jim Bell's responses to my messages to cpunks were addressed to me and cc'ed to cpunks, just as yours was in this case. Robb London claimed that meant Jim and I were in direct communication when I was doing all I could to avoid private contact with Jim, then as now. He continues to be a witting or unwitting agent of the fuckers in ensnaring stand-off supporters in his comical stupidities which the fuckers take as high serious crimes. And I will ask again to all readers in the universe: do not send me private e-mail about Jim Bell, CJ, or anybody likely to be a target of the SOBs working cybercrime-rich territory. Post your stuff to a public forum, and do not cc me. Thank you very much.
Re: CDR: Re: Voluntary Mandatory Self-Ratings and Limits on Speech
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: > On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 02:10:18PM +0300, Sampo Syreeni wrote: > > True. Yet harm gives you cause for Common Law action, no? > > No. If I start a bakery that competes with yours and takes customers > from yours, I have "harmed" you. Yet this is something that society > encourages. No, no 'harm' occurs in that situation. Nothing that was 'yours' was damaged or othewise manipulated without your consent. Those potential customers decision to shop at your store or another isn't 'yours'. Your desires and expectations weren't fulfilled by the expectations of the market or your approach to using it. However, you have no reason to expect those people to have an obligation to do business with you. Typical logical schism in C-A-C-L thinking, the 'individual' is everything and the 'group' is nothing. Not putting 2+2 that the 'group' is nothing but the collective actions of the individual. This is not the sort of 'individualism' that Hayek and other free market proponents are refering too. In a very real sense it's mis-representation. -- natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::>/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
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Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 06:05:04PM -0400, Faustine wrote: > Great points. If you're looking to make a difference re: cypherpunk and pro- > libertarian issues and have a scientific and practical streak, why not get > an advanced degree in policy analysis instead? You get a rock-solid > grounding in a number of critical disciplines, and put yourself in a > position to seriously affect policy on the broadest possible stage. Not for Alas, the best policy analysts I've seen are lawyers. Folks in DC, at least, look down at people who got an easier "policy analysis" degree as people who couldn't or didn't want to go to law school. -Declan
Re: Comped scribblers the bane of conferences
On Thu, Aug 23, 2001 at 04:14:04PM -0700, Tim May wrote: > Meanwhile, don't expect to see me at the next CFP conference! Plenty of > comped scribblers, though. CFP is in SF next year, so you may want to stop by. As for "comped scribblers," I am one. But look at it from a journalist's perspective: We may attend two conferences a week, say at $1,500/per. Rough estimates, then, would be over $150,000 a year, more than most journalists make. Paying that much in conference fees is not feasible, and conference organizers generally understand this and let us in free (we may pay for meals) in exchange for publicity. -Declan
Re: Send Law Students, Idealists and Grant Proposals. Was: Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 11:31:15PM -0700, Black Unicorn wrote: > Yep. The most interesting lawyers I know are either professors, took high > level positions in government, or do something OTHER than practice law. I've found this to be true. Every few months I'm on a panel with general counsel/corporate lawyers. They're some of the most bland people imaginable. They're even worse when you're interviewing them. -Declan
Re: Send Law Students, Idealists and Grant Proposals. Was: Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 11:31:15PM -0700, Black Unicorn wrote: > you will, but the partners are hiring their little associates for one reason, > to pay for those cherry wood offices and the but the odds are awfully slim you > will be working on the DMCA. There are so many lawyers out there right now Right. Look at who did handle the only DMCA trial: Martin Garbus, someone whose personality may be lacking in some ways, but not a lawyer who came right out of law school. > I'm not sure how EFF pays, I suspect not particularly well. The high end > corporate firms generally start their first year associates around $110-125k > or so for top end of the top school graduates. More in New York maybe. The > _median_ salary for a Stanford law grad is $95,000.00 if they go into > corporate practice. Just over $40,000.00 for public sector work. EFF in 1999: Salaries and names of top officials: Tara Lemmey Exec. Director $110,577 Shari SteeleLegal Dir. $82,400 Money spent on salary: $ 462,368 CDT in 1999: Salaries and names of top officials: Alan Davidson Staff Counsel $ 59,125 Deirdre MulliganStaff Counsel $ 82,037 James Dempsey Calea Fellow$ 95,221 John Morris Broadband Director $ 71,923 These are all lawyers with a decade or more of work experience. -Declan
Re: lawyerpunks-in-training...?
On Mon, Aug 20, 2001 at 07:00:57AM -0500, Steve Furlong wrote: > things I could do with a law degree, such as beat up on lawyers who were beating up >on free > software projects. The program takes four years of "part time" study if you wish to >take the > bar afterward, or three years if you just want a JD. Steve: An interesting project, and I wish you well. You may be in a good position to respond to nastygrams that lawyers beating up on free software projects send. But it strikes me that if you want to get involved in even a semi-serious legal defense, it may be more than you can afford pro bono unless you're at a large law firm. Even the PETA case (which I wrote about today for Wired) involves over $300K in legal fees and misc. expenses, and that was just over a domain name. -Declan
Re: Voluntary Mandatory Self-Ratings and Limits on Speech
On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Harm does, but "harm" doesn't. It's pretty easy to claim that books and
>movies etc which "glorify" "bad" behavior lead to viewers being more
>likely to engage in the bad behavior glorified, or bad behavior in
>general, without even trying to claim that a particular "bad book" was
>responsible for a particular crime.
Agreed. As Tim said, one first needs to show that there is a rights
violation, and that harm is indeed being done. In fact I'm of the opinion
that even when that *can* be achieved, it's still not quite ok to regulate
if the harm is not immediate -- even if violent entertainment does cause
violence, and people are dying because of it, you need to show that the
subjects are not left a choice, but are compelled to act violently. Probably
you'd need to show that they've been forced/tricked into watching the stuff
in the first place. None of that can be done in the case of "entertainment
unsuitable for young eyes", of course.
The reason I started talking about harm is that *if* we could satisfy the
above conditions, we would have a case for regulation, even if basic rights
are thereby infringed.
>The problem with this analysis is that it ignores the crucial point that
>the people calling for labelling ("voluntary" or otherwise) are not your
>customers, they're people trying to protect their own or their children's
>virgin eyes from content they find offensive or blasphemous or whatever.
Those who campaign for voluntary labelling without a covert agenda (who Tim
argues represent a negligible minority of rating advocates) naturally hope
that those who *are* your clients will be requiring the ratings, and so
providing the incentive to rate. In essence, they hope that the presence of
voluntary ratings will become the norm, and as essential to the reputation
of an online entity as its credit rating, or the accuracy of its past
communications. They are daydreaming, of course, but I do not see where the
basic fault in this reasoning is.
>You have an economic incentive to please your customers, but you have no
>incentive to please people who aren't your customers.
The trouble is, rating schemes can be turned into certification schemes,
where the label represents an assurance that the information is kosher. In
this case, you *do* rate for the customer. The same would happen with
current rating schemes if they were to become widespread enough; one can
imagine MAPS like blacklists, non-cooperation of ISPs and so on, where
people who are not your direct customers still react to unrated content as a
part of a collective effort to control some (imaginary) externality.
Nobody wants this to happen, of course, and it hardly will, given the effort
it would take to "rate the Internet". The point is, there is nothing wrong
with the economics per se.
Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], gsm: +358-50-5756111
student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
