Power, Propaganda and Conscience in The War On Terror
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4889§ionID=40 A view from the left Excerpts "During the height of the cold war, a group of Soviet journalists were taken on an official tour of the United States. They watched TV; they read the newspapers; they listened to debates in Congress. To their astonishment, everything they heard was more or less the same. The news was the same. The opinions were the same, more or less. "How do you do it?" they asked their hosts. "In our country, to achieve this, we throw people in prison; we tear out their fingernails. Here, theres none of that? Whats your secret?" . . . ""Liberal realism" - in America, Britain, Australia - meant taking the humanity out of the study of nations and viewing the world in terms of its usefulness to western power. This was presented in a self-serving jargon: a masonic-like language in thrall to the dominant power. Typical of the jargon were labels." . . . "The difference is that in totalitarian societies, people take for granted that their governments lie to them: that their journalists are mere functionaries, that their academics are quiet and complicit. So people in these countries adjust accordingly. They learn to read between the lines. They rely on a flourishing underground. Their writers and playwrights write coded works, as in Poland and Czechoslovakia during the cold war. A Czech friend, a novelist, told me; "You in the West are disadvantaged. You have your myths about freedom of information, but you have yet to acquire the skill of deciphering: of reading between the lines. One day, you will need it." . . . "In the days before September 11, 2001, when America routinely attacked and terrorised weak states, and the victims were black and brown-skinned people in faraway places like Zaire and Guatemala, there were no headlines saying terrorism. But when the weak attacked the powerful, spectacularly on September 11, suddenly, there was terrorism. This is not to say that the threat from al-Qaida is not real - It is very real now, thanks to American and British actions in Iraq, and the almost infantile support given by the Howard government. But the most pervasive, clear and present danger is that of which we are told nothing. It is the danger posed by "our" governments - a danger suppressed by propaganda that casts "the West" as always benign: capable of misjudgment and blunder, yes, but never of high crime. The judgement at Nuremberg takes another view. This is what the judgement says; and remember, these words are the basis for almost 60 years of international law: "To initiate a war of aggression, it is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." In other words, there is no difference, in the principle of the law, between the action of the German regime in the late 1930s and the Americans in 2003. Fuelled by religious fanaticism, a corrupt Americanism and corporate greed, the Bush cabal is pursuing what the military historian Anatol Lieven calls "the classic modern strategy of an endangered right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert discontent into nationalism". Bushs America, he warns, "has become a menace to itself and to mankind."
Re: US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment
At 03:20 PM 1/11/2004, Jamie Lawrence wrote: >A client/friend recently spent 9 hours in jail for failure to carry a wallet. He was doing something mildly suspicious, but not illegal. NYC has a very entrenched industry dealing with "processing" people the cops pick up. This has only gotten worse since Bloomberg and his "quality of life" racket. Breathing Without ID is essentially a crime that costs a day of your life, not less than ~$200, and a lot of humiliation. I thought the San Francisco cops were bad, before I moved here. (My friend was even told by the cops what to expect, and how best to optimize for getting out quickly. Kafka would have trouble doing better.) >There was a mildly publicized incident in another part of Brooklyn recently where someone was ticketed after their child's balloon popped in public. A noise infraction. Quality of live, indeed. "There are no quotas, but if you don't meet them, you're on report." This is one of the 'applications' for Zombie Patriots. Set up those practicing tyranny under color of the law for a quick trip to the coroner. Bring the fun of Hammas to New York. "How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?" --Alexander Solzhenitzyn, Gulag Archipelago
Re: US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment
At 03:20 PM 1/11/2004, Jamie Lawrence wrote: >A client/friend recently spent 9 hours in jail for failure to carry a wallet. He was doing something mildly suspicious, but not illegal. NYC has a very entrenched industry dealing with "processing" people the cops pick up. This has only gotten worse since Bloomberg and his "quality of life" racket. Breathing Without ID is essentially a crime that costs a day of your life, not less than ~$200, and a lot of humiliation. I thought the San Francisco cops were bad, before I moved here. (My friend was even told by the cops what to expect, and how best to optimize for getting out quickly. Kafka would have trouble doing better.) >There was a mildly publicized incident in another part of Brooklyn recently where someone was ticketed after their child's balloon popped in public. A noise infraction. Quality of live, indeed. "There are no quotas, but if you don't meet them, you're on report." This is one of the 'applications' for Zombie Patriots. Set up those practicing tyranny under color of the law for a quick trip to the coroner. Bring the fun of Hammas to New York. "How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?" --Alexander Solzhenitzyn, Gulag Archipelago
Re: US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment
> At 08:10 PM 1/9/2004, Greg Broiles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Did you actually read the opinion, or just read some screwball summary of it? Obviously not well enough. Thanks for straightening me out. > > >In Cases v. United States, 131 F.2d 916 (1st Cir. 1942) the Supreme Court > >[...] > > Nope. That opinion was written, as the citation indicated, by the Court of > Appeals for the First Circuit, not the Supreme Court. > > > unbelievably held that U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) had not > > intended "to formulate a general rule" regarding which arms were > > protected by the Second Amendment and therefore many types of arms were > > not protected. > > While I do think that the 2nd Amendment does, in fact, protect an > individual right to keep and bear arms, I think that the 1st Circuit's > reasoning re _Miller_ in _Cases_ is actually quite reasonable. The opinion > points out that interpreting _Miller_ so that it says the 2nd Amendment > means that Congress can regulate firearms, but only ineffective or useless > ones, is nonsensical. While I don't think the Ninth Circuit reads _Miller_ > in a reasonable fashion, I don't think the "only useless weapons may be > regulated" is an especially rational interpretation of it, either. > > >A plain reading of Miller meant only weapons with non-military application > >could be regulated by Congress and that could not be right because it > >challenged the 'right' of government to have a force monopoly. So the > >Court's reasoning was that the Founders could not have meant for the > >federal government to have any effective deterrent to its tyranny from the > >citizenry. Even after absorbing the opinion, I cannot fathom how > >convoluted a reading of the historical record those on bench needed in > >order to arrive at their conclusion. Pretzel logic indeed! > > Yes, that is an unreasonable conclusion to reach. It is also unreasonable > to conclude that the 2nd Amendment means that no regulation of weapons is > constitutionally permissible. Its hard to square the Founder's purpose of providing the common citizen, through a militia (which a National Guard), with an effective physical deterrent to governmental tyranny with many restrictions on the type of weapons a citizen in good standing may keep and bear. Though allowing the guy next door to own a nuke or a F-15 may be going too far, its not unreasonable for any of us to keep and bear any arm that our police forces (including S.W.A.T. teams) field. >Even the 1st Amendment - which contains the > words "shall make no law" - is interpreted to allow some regulation of > speech. (e.g., shouting theater in a crowded fire, etc.) Only if there is no fire. When a government comes to a bad end there is indeed a fire in the theater.
Re: US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment
> > >Further appeals to Congress and the states are no longer a sure bet. The > >soap box and the ballot box have been throughly tried, is it now time to > >get out the ammo box? > > You're forgetting the jury box. Are you forgetting that the Fat Lady on the jury, at least in the 9th Circuit, already sang? That's how we got to where we are. Could other juries in other cases decide differently? Sure. But why wait any more than Congress or some States may wait? In two key cases last century the logic of the Supreme Court or lack of it was clearly revealed as they tried to somehow interpret away historical record and Founder intention to square the 2nd Amendment with statist needs. In Cases v. United States, 131 F.2d 916 (1st Cir. 1942) the Supreme Court unbelievably held that U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) had not intended "to formulate a general rule" regarding which arms were protected by the Second Amendment and therefore many types of arms were not protected. In fact Miller held that it is the firearm itself, not the act of keeping and bearing the firearm, which must have a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Meaning if the weapon qualified any citizen could keep and near it. A plain reading of Miller meant only weapons with non-military application could be regulated by Congress and that could not be right because it challenged the 'right' of government to have a force monopoly. So the Court's reasoning was that the Founders could not have meant for the federal government to have any effective deterrent to its tyranny from the citizenry. Even after absorbing the opinion, I cannot fathom how convoluted a reading of the historical record those on bench needed in order to arrive at their conclusion. Pretzel logic indeed!
US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment
The great American experiment finally fizzled on December 1, 2003, when the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a 9th Federal Circuit decision which gutted the Second Amendment. It was a nice run - over two hundred years. As of December 1, 2003, the US Supreme Court issued its ruling, refusing to hear an appeal in the case of Silveira vs. Lockyer. That made Silveira the law of the land, you see. You might think that the Silveria case was about the definition of an “assault weapon” but you’d be mistaken. In Silveira, the 9th Circuit Court made the following pronouncement: there is no individual right to bear arms contained within the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. That means that no American citizen, since December 1, 2003, has a fundamental right to possess a firearm. http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/columns/arms.htm http://www.keepandbeararms.com/Mancus/silveira.asp Gun enthusiasts (especially those who are members of the National Rifle Association http://www.nra.org and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership http://www.jpfo.org) may have now reached a crossroads. They have spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying politicians and the public to support their view that in the US the right to own firearms is granted to individuals and not state militias (a view I completely support). But now, with the Supreme Court refusing to hear their appeal of the 9th Circuit decision in Silveira v. Lockyer, they are faced with the likelihood that Congress and state leglislatures will feel free to further restrict gun ownership, perhaps even eliminate it over time, as has happened in other countries. Further appeals to Congress and the states are no longer a sure bet. The soap box and the ballot box have been throughly tried, is it now time to get out the ammo box?
Book review: A Lodging of Wayfaring Men
[The book is now available in electronic form (.pdf) for download from long time cypherpunk and Havenco founder Sean Hastings' web site: http://www.seanhastings.com/alowm.pdf Donations/patronage of $10 to the author, in e-gold or DMT, are requested in the book's forward.] A Lodging of Wayfaring Men By Anonymous Paperback 449 pages Available from http://www.laissezfairebooks.com for $17.95. Phone order line: 800-326-0996 BOOK REVIEW by Thomas Dorman This is a brief, favorable review of a novel published anonymously. Our civilization is bereft of heroes. Ayn Rand pointed out that contemporary heroes in western civilization are actors and gladiators. In times gone by we had statesmen, philosophers, warriors, inventors, scientists, engineers and doctors. Where have the heroes gone? The news, television and educational media have passed them by, have erased them from the consciousness of our civilization. The Renaissance period brought forth the ascendancy of the mind; the intellect of man; the rational mind. The philosopher kings (Plato's term) have regrouped, and, through dumbing down, diversion, and the feeding of all of humanities' addictions have (almost) brought the herd back to the serfdom "it deserves." The novel I am reviewing brings the hero back. The philosopher, the physician/inventor, imbued with selfishness and the love of humanity combined. In Ayn Rand's novels, the heroes were only selfish. "Altruism is the weakness of the downtrodden". This novelist has taken us a step further. Through promoting the welfare of all, each of us and our families grow into fulfilling the fullness of our potential. It is based all on the free market. These concepts close the circle of the philosophy of laissez faire. The novel leads us through a clever plot where the principles of freedom and individuality lead to a free market, one not controlled by governments or by tax men. The narrative is gripping. The reader cannot lay the book down. The book culminates in a number of essays filling in gaps in the philosophy of western civilization. An enigma remains. Why is the book authored anonymously? I received the book camouflaged in a brown envelope, mailed from Switzerland. Looking at its production, it was clearly the product of a short printing run. A letter in the envelope reads: "Hello, The author of this book prepared a short list of people that might be best able to appreciate it, and instructed us to see that complimentary copies were provided. Your name was included on the list. This is not a request for endorsements. We thank you if you wish to recommend the book to Should you desire more copies, they are currently available from Laissez-Faire Books. http://laissezfairebooks.com Thank you, The Publishers" I almost forgot the title: A Lodging of Wayfaring Men. A bit odd, don't you think? About halfway through the book we find a quotation from the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter nine. He laments the woebegone ways of his people. They have lost their moorings; they no longer obey their lord. I, for myself, have often noticed that much of the objectivism of Ayn Rand is rooted, perhaps unconsciously, in the Hebrew tradition. This has not been subject to analysis, and the virulent antireligiousness of her writing is one flaw (the other is not recognizing that most people are not rational). This particular novel leads us, in the end, to an exciting scene where the protagonist is interviewed by the Bilderbergers (the true rulers of the world). I will not tell you the outcome; you need to read the book for yourselves. Everyone who thinks he has a rational mind needs to read this novel. Western civilization needs to be rescued, and for this we need leadership; we need a philosophy. The seeds! of it are right here in this novel. I am going to say it again: You need to read this novel. Oh, yes. I forgot to comment on why, at least why I believe, the author chose to remains anonymous. The purpose of this novel is to instill independent responsibility and thinking in each of the readers. If the author were to give her or his name, we would be creating another guru cult. You see, the essence of our civilization is independence; intellectual independence of each member of the middle class. How can you be independent if you follow a guru? Readers of my writing will know how fearful I am of the future of our civilization. Just in the last month, our privacy in medical records is lost. Our privacy in our personal communications and affairs are lost to the Homeland Security Act, and we are threatened in our homes and towns with violence and terrorism from fanatics from out with our borders, and fanatics within government. Who will save us? We have to take responsibility individually, all of us. We need to turn the tide and rescue our civilization. Now is the time.! This is a call to arms; moral arms. Read the book. Thomas Dorman, MD November 29th 2002
Re: Sources and Sinks
From: bgt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Sat, 2004-01-03 at 07:09, Michael Kalus wrote: > > > > Where there is no governmental police force, their is demand for > > > private enforcement. And you know what? They regularly do their jobs > > > better than the police. > > > > Of course there is no oversight body, so if they use "excessive force" > > well, It's all part of doing business and after all they didn't smash > > YOUR skull so what do you care, right? > > The only necessary "oversight body" is the courts. Both public and > private police (should) operate under the Rule of Law just like everyone > else. As with the public police, if private police have public > perception problems related to excessive force, abuse of power, or > whatever, they may opt to use a third-party interest to do > "self-policing" by fining, firing, etc (much like pro sports > organizations do... contractually). This is strictly a business > management decision however, the only "legal" oversight should be > the court. Police (public or private) should be judged and punished > (in the legal sense) in the same way any other citizen is. http://www.constitution.org/lrev/roots/cops.htm Seton Hall Constitutional L.J. 2001, 685 ARE COPS CONSTITUTIONAL? Roger Roots* ABSTRACT Police work is often lionized by jurists and scholars who claim to employ "textualist" and "originalist" methods of constitutional interpretation. Yet professional police were unknown to the United States in 1789, and first appeared in America almost a half-century after the Constitution's ratification. The Framers contemplated law enforcement as the duty of mostly private citizens, along with a few constables and sheriffs who could be called upon when necessary. This article marshals extensive historical and legal evidence to show that modern policing is in many ways inconsistent with the original intent of America's founding documents. The author argues that the growth of modern policing has substantially empowered the state in a way the Framers would regard as abhorrent to their foremost principles.
Re: Singers jailed for lyrics
At 05:19 PM 12/31/2003, John Kelsey wrote: > > In the most morally neutral case, this is like one criminal gang attacking > another. If the Sopprano family invades the Bozini family's turf, takes > over their protection rackets, and hunts down their godfather, it could be > messy, and it really will be an initiation of force in the most literal > sense. But is this the same kind of "initiation of force" that we normally > talk about when, say, a mugger knocks me over the head and takes my laptop > and wallet? (And of course, it's not that morally neutral. It's more like > a bunch of vigilantes from the neighborhood next door getting rid of the > gang running your neighborhood, for reasons of their own, but probably to > your benefit.) Although I disagree with the personal benefit aspect, this is the way I view the two major US poltical parties: two mob organizations fighting over turf and tax spoils. I think its time to clean up the D.C. (Augean) Stables. ND
Re: Patriot Ants (was: Re: Zombie Patriots and other musings)
From: Thomas Shaddack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Sat, 13 Dec 2003, John Kelsey wrote: > > > Of course, there's a more fundamental problem with surrendering to the lone > > warriors. Imagine that there's such a wave of pro-life terrorism that we > > finally agree to ban abortion. You're a fanatically committed pro-choice > > activist. What's your next move? > > Two moves possible. > > The violent, far less effective and possibly somehow counterproductive > one: attacking the ones who enforce the measurement, by letal or nonlethal > means, to act as deterrent. I think you should the word possibly when referring to effectiveness of outcomes. One can never knows until one tries. Every monment in history is unique and the effectiveness of the use of a particular strategy can never be ascertained beforehand. Mine is based on at least two inspirations... "How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?" --Alexander Solzhenitzyn, Gulag Archipelago and Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. -- Louis D. Brandeis As Americans I'm sure we have been tutored by some of the best. Time to put into practice what we have learned. > > The nonviolent one: developing and deploying the technology necessary for > underground clinics to provide higher quality service, and for their > clients to find, order and pay for the services without being likely to > trace down by the Whateveriscurrentlythelaw Enforcement. Causing bad press > for them, keeping public awareness that alternatives to the law-compliance > exist. Learning from countries with similar bans in action, both from the > present and from history, how the alternatives developed there, and > building on this knowledge. > > Direct attack is not always the best route, however tempting. A house can > be brought down from the outside by a bomb, or from the inside by white > ants. The trouble with this method is that is generally requires a large percentage of the population to actively or passively support a position. This almost always occurs after a situation has become intolerable to the masses. I have no intention in placing my ability to enjoy what I consider my basic rights into the hands of a million Joe Sixpacks and await their enlightenment. "The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty." -- Quintin H. Hailsham, The Dilemma of Democracy Get ready for a lot of abuse...
PhoneBook: Making your PC 'Police-Ready'
[Wherein the author of Freemail reveals his latest project idea. Comments to the author are appreciated.] PhoneBook is a suite of Linux software that allows you to protect your privacy by creating encrypted filesystems, in such a way as to defend you from both technical and legal attacks. http://www.freenet.org.nz/phonebook/
Re: Zombie Patriots and other musings
From: An Metet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > The devil is in details. > > Given small numbers and absence of any other grouping factor there needs to be an > "obvious" place for ZPs to refer to. Any obvious place that becomes even remotely > attractive to ZPs will be immediately raided. If you mean a physical location you're probably right. > Because ZPs have potential to be actually dangerous to the gang in power, as opposed > to everything else I've seen so far. > > So we're back to square one - effective anonymous publishing is prerequisite for the > regime change and executing post-natal abortions. And it has been for centuries. Not at. All that is required is for a few "early adopters" to point the way and then make their statments through the popular press. Look at what havoc two Joe Sixpacks caused D.C. operating out of the back of a slightly modified sedan. Imagine if they had the home addersses of lots of federal agents instead of randomly picking other Joes filling up their gas tanks. I've heard a project has been underway for some time to create and publish dossiers for federal officers. > > When I say "effective" I don't mean posting a message to Usenet via WiFI-ing into > some sucker's open AP. No one gives a fuck for Usenet postings, blacknet etc. - and > ZPs are unlikely to educate themselves and search for them. Effective means > untouchable web site with untouchable DNS entry. Effective means something doable by > average determined person. Like tuning to Radio London from occupied Europe in WW2. Create dossiers on a broad variety the hoster management. If sites are terminated or their DNS is disabled so will managemnt and/or their familes. Like a force of nature, no explanation warning or threat. I2P is coming. With six months it should offer a stable and fairly bullet proof platform for lots of nice apps. It should be easy to install and operate in most consumer net situations. > > Like I said, we're back to square one - all effective means are firmly shut down. Waaa!!! Waaa!!! What a cry baby. Pick you target, go out and shake things up.
Re: ALTA/DMT privacy [was: Re: (No Subject)]
Original Message From: Bill Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On 10 Dec 2003 at 15:19, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > E-gold and other DGCs do not do much if any due diligence in > > checking account holder identification > > Unfortunately, they also don't due much if any due diligence in > identifying themselves in messages to real or potential customers, > so it's extremely difficult to determine if I've gotten any > administrative messages that really _were_ from them > as opposed to the N fraudsters sending out mail asking you to - > log in to e-g0ld.com or whatever fake page lets them steal > your egold account number and password so they can drain your balance. Actually they do. Sort of at http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/alert.html - Never click hypertext links in HTML formatted e-mail to access your account. - Confirm that you are on the e-gold website before entering your e-gold passphrase into either a logon form or a payment authorization form (see note below about e-gold shopping cart interface): - Verify the address/location/URL starts with: https://www.e-gold.com/ - Verify that the site certificate is issued by VeriSign to www.e-gold.com > > A policy of PGP-signing all their messages using a key > that's published on their web pages would be a good start, > though it's still possible to trick some fraction of people > into accepting the wrong keys. Too few customers would know what to do with such a key. >For now, my basic assumption > is that any communications I receive that purport to be from them > are a fraud, and it's frustrating that there's no good mechanism > for reporting that to e-gold. They know about most of the fraudulent emails circulating. They don't want to hear about them from customers because it would exhaust what customer service resources they have. I have never received an email from e-gold following my account creation confirmation and I beleive its their policy not to send emails for just this reason.
Re: alt.anonymous.messages
Original Message From: Anatoly Vorobey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > You do not need to use remailers to take advantage of > > alt.anonymous.messages. If someone posts directly to > > alt.anonymous. messages, still the adversary cannot tell who he > > is posting to. (Assuming his recipient sets his newsagent to > > always download all new messages) > > Oh, that's true of course; but the adversary would be able to know > that you posted something (given that he's monitoring your traffic). > That's already something, and frequently more than you'd want to > give away. Use your laptop and random open Wi-Fi hotspots (esp. a consumer's) for such sensitive communication.
Re: ALTA/DMT privacy [was: Re: (No Subject)]
Original Message From: "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Apparently from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: ALTA/DMT privacy [was: Re: (No Subject)] Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 14:13:59 -0800 > -- > On 10 Dec 2003 at 15:19, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > If you > > fund you accounts using money orders, you may be safe > > (depending on whether you've employed others to purchase the > > money orders or your physical identity is being captured at > > the money order agent during the transaction). > > Some people offer a cash to e-gold service. Though this is mostly discovered through direct communications, for obvious reasons. > > Deposit a bundle of notes in their account, they will sell you > e-gold. You use the low order bits of the amount as an ID. Others have used the serial number of one of the bills submitted (e.g., the one highlighted with a yellow marker). > > > ALTA/DMT does have a certain degree of un-linkability in that > > once accounts are deleted all db references in the system to > > that account are also deleted from all ALTA/DMT dbs. > > Trust us. Would we lie to you? This info was obtained from discussions with the developers, experiments with the system and examination of the code.
Re: alt.anonymous.messages
From: "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > You do not need to use remailers to take advantage of > alt.anonymous.messages. If someone posts directly to > alt.anonymous. messages, still the adversary cannot tell who he > is posting to. (Assuming his recipient sets his newsagent to > always download all new messages) Or access Usenet via a satellite feed.
ALTA/DMT privacy [was: Re: (No Subject)]
At 10:37 AM 12/10/2003, James A. Donald wrote: -- On 9 Dec 2003 at 0:47, edo wrote: >> What I'm curious about is digital currencies. Can anyone >> speak about the Digital Monetary Trust or DMT? I'm sorry I >> have not read the last upteen years of mail archives, but I'm >> interested in what people think NOW about Orlin Grabbe, DMT, >> e-gold etc. ...snip.. >None of these accounts provide Chaumian anonymity, which means >they can track identity, which means they must track identity, which costs them. >However one can withdraw, and deposit, physical gold, which actually is anonymous, and provides a physical mix, since one gold atom looks very like another. E-gold and other DGCs do not do much if any due diligence in checking account holder identification, so if you use an effective proxying means (e.g., an open Wi-Fi hotspot) to create and access your accounts you are pretty safe. If you fund you accounts using money orders, you may be safe (depending on whether you've employed others to purchase the money orders or your physical identity is being captured at the money order agent during the transaction). Although ALTA/DMT doesn't support blinded tokens, it does support tokens. http://www.orlingrabbe.com/dmt_bearercert.htm ALTA/DMT does have a certain degree of un-linkability in that once accounts are deleted all db references in the system to that account are also deleted from all ALTA/DMT dbs. This means if value is transferred from account A to Account B and subsequently Account A is deleted all traces of the transaction should be unlinked from Account B. It also means if you delete an account with a balance, accidently or otherwise, the money is gone. Two e-gold exchange agents have announced either formally or informally that they will now transact with ALTA/DMT. I beleive thay both accept money orders for fuding. Money can be withdrawn using e-gold and/or ATM cards either directly supporting ALTA/DMT (https://www.liquidprivacy.net/) or e-gold.
Foresight Exchange in NYT today
New York Times, Page E9, October 2, 2003 Predict the Future? You Can Bet on It By PETER WAYNER THE off-again, on-again recall election in California hasn't been easy on politicians and voters in that state. It hasn't been too easy on Gavin Peters, either, even though he lives 2,500 miles away in Toronto. When the news came in mid-September that a panel of judges had delayed the vote, Mr. Peters, a computer programmer, rushed to his PC. He had been betting that Gov. Gray Davis would be gone by November, but now he desperately wanted to close out those bets and make new ones that Mr. Davis would still be around. Mr. Peters succeeded and watched his account grow as the confusion nurtured Mr. Davis's long-term chances. But his bets were still in place a week later when the panel's decision was overturned and the vote was reinstated. "I lost a ton," he said. "I'm down to half of my original money." Fortunately for Mr. Peters, he is not playing for real dollars. He is trading play money on the Foresight Exchange (www .ideosphere.com), one of several Web sites that let people speculate on world events by imitating the futures and options trading pits. Instead of investing in the price of hog bellies or the S.& P. 500, the almost 2,000 members of the Foresight Exchange gamble on such questions as whether a space elevator will be built, whether the European Union will expand, or whether a certain cardinal will be the next pope. Sites like the Foresight Exchange captured the headlines last summer when Congress discovered that a Pentagon office under the direction of Adm. John M. Poindexter was planning a similar system in which anonymous players could bet on the likelihood of events like acts of terrorism. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which financed the project in the belief that it might help predict the probability of future terrorist attacks, retreated rapidly as congressmen started calling it ghoulish. The Pentagon office, the Information Awareness Office, has since been shut down. But in fact, marketplaces like the Foresight Exchange and the one envisioned by Admiral Poindexter are darlings of economists, who describe their workings with sophisticated terms like "price discovery," "opinion aggregation" or "risk analysis." They argue that the constant betting is an efficient way for distilling the opinions of many people into one number. In the simplest systems, players buy and sell contracts to pay 100 units of fake or real money at some future point - like the end of a game or an election. In Mr. Peters's case, he was buying and selling the right to get 100 points if, "by Nov. 16, the Secretary of State has certified elections results in which a majority of voters elect to remove Gray Davis from office." These marketplaces synthesize a prediction for the future by letting the price fluctuate as everyone chooses how much to pay for the contracts. Someone who spends 50 points to buy a Davis contract is effectively betting with 1-to-1 odds that Governor Davis will be recalled by the voters. Paying 50 points will yield a profit of 50 points if he is voted out. Someone who paid 33 points would be getting 2-to-1 odds and someone who paid 10 points would be getting 9 to 1 odds. Robin Hanson, an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University and an organizer of both the Foresight Exchange and the Pentagon project, said: "What's nice about these institutions is they always come up with a number. When you talk to academics, they might say, 'That's not possible. We don't have the right data. We don't have the right insight.' These markets cough up a number. There may be a lot of error, but at least you get something." Markets like these are most accurate when the players have a stake in the question at hand and the result is determined by a large number of people. The Iowa Electronic Markets, for instance, collect small bets made with real money on the outcome of elections. They report that the prices of futures contracts pegged to the results of elections are often better predictors than most polls. (Data from the Iowa markets, run by the faculty of the University of Iowa's business school, are used to study trading behavior and as a teaching tool to introduce students to real-world markets.) But when the players know little or have little control of the outcome, the results are often not reliable. The Hollywood Stock Exchange, for example, lets people bet play money on the box office success of movies and stars by purchasing futures contracts. One problem is that the guiding rule in Hollywood, at least according to the screenwriter William Goldman, is that "Nobody knows anything." Aggregating this collective intelligence doesn't always pay off. For example, the Hollywood exchange was predicting that "Gigli," one of this summer's greatest flops, would collect almost $35 million at the box office. It ended up with about $6 million. Karl Hallowell, a doctoral student in math
