Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[Major Variola (ret)]

Quoth Steve:
>Under this logic a retailer in one
> country, selling a controversial book to someone in another country,
could
> involve publishers in yet a third country to litigation in the second
> country. Bizarre.
>
> The real question is whether any judgement is enforceable.

Depends if the Dow Jones CEOs ever go to Australia.

Ask Mr. Skylarov about enforceability.  Better yet, ask his wife
or newborn.

RE: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[Lucky Green]

Steve wrote:
> This is totally bogus thinking. The Internet is not broadcast medium. 
> Information from Web sites must be requested, the equivalent 
> of ordering a 
> book or newspaper, for delivery. Under this logic a retailer in one 
> country, selling a controversial book to someone in another 
> country, could 
> involve publishers in yet a third country to litigation in the second 
> country. Bizarre.
> 
> The real question is whether any judgement is enforceable.

Agreed. A few years ago, some would advocate that on the Internet, no
national laws apply. This was, of course, nonsense. Instead, every
single national, regional, and local law in effect today anywhere in the
world applies to anything you do to the extent that said law can be
enforced.

--Lucky

RE: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[R. A. Hettinga]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

At 6:11 PM -0800 on 12/12/02, Lucky Green wrote:


> Agreed. A few years ago, some would advocate that on the Internet,
> no national laws apply. This was, of course, nonsense. Instead,
> every single national, regional, and local law in effect today
> anywhere in the world applies to anything you do to the extent that
> said law can be enforced.

Everything illegal everywhere all the time.


A legislative singularity akin to early modern discoveries in physics
(the end of the geocentric universe) and engineering (peasant-fired
projectile weapons making noble armor obsolete) once and forever
violating the "laws" of god.


The next trick will be to drive a stake into the heart of modern
society's  present mystification of identity and is-a-person
credentials by moving money and financial assets, significantly
cheaper than we do now, using systems that don't require identity at
all to clear and settle transactions. Systems which are,
paradoxically, cheaper *because* they're anonymous, or at least,
identity "agnostic", just like physics is religiously agnostic.


If that works, sooner or later we'll have the technical equivalent of
the thirty years' war, which only the ubiquitous and instantaneous
application or threat of  private, local, force will solve. The
result will be a software/protocol "Treaty of Westphalia", giving us
actual markets for force instead of confiscatory monopolies for same.

In the end, if necessary we'll know, absolutely, where *every*body
is, and what they're doing, all the time, because we'll all be
watching our *own* stuff, supervising our *own* property with our
*own* equipment, like, um, god, meant us to do :-). But,
paradoxically, because it'll be cheaper and more secure to do
instantaneously-settled functionally anonymous transactions, we won't
know, we won't *care* where anybody gets, spends, or invests their
money, and we won't give damn about it because it works better than
the Friedmanian mummenschantz(1) we currently call "law and order".
Markets will create better order than laws ever could.

Cheers,
RAH

(1) See David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom" where he
describes the finance of the modern nation state as this ceremonial
game in which 50 people sit in a circle with a hundred pennies
stacked in front of each person. The politician comes along, and with
great pomp and circumstance (and two guys with guns on either side of
him), takes everyone's pennies and dumps them into a fancy bowl.
Then, at random, he stands in front of someone, and slowly, with
great fanfare, counts off 50 pennies and gives them to the lucky
recipient. After repeating this 49 more times without repeating
anyone, the politician and his associates go off to the local pub and
buy themselves a beer. The victims are left marvelling at all the
free money they just got.

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Version: PGP 8.0 - not licensed for commercial use: www.pgp.com

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-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"Every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods." -- H.L. Mencken

Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[Jim Choate]

On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Steve Schear wrote:

>  From the article:
> "The court dismissed suggestions the Internet was different from other
> broadcasters, who could decide how far their signal was to be transmitted."
>
> This is totally bogus thinking. The Internet is not broadcast medium.

Yes, it is. Every site that emits a packet broadcasts it onto the network.
One can even make a comparison between 'frequency & modulation' with 'IP &
service'.

> Information from Web sites must be requested, the equivalent of ordering a
> book or newspaper,

Or tuning your browser to the 'frequecy' of the web server.


 --


We don't see things as they are,  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
we see them as we are.   www.ssz.com
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Anais Nin www.open-forge.org

Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[Dave Howe]

Jim Choate wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Steve Schear wrote:
>>  From the article:
>> "The court dismissed suggestions the Internet was different from
>> other broadcasters, who could decide how far their signal was to be
>> transmitted."
>> This is totally bogus thinking. The Internet is not broadcast medium.
> Yes, it is. Every site that emits a packet broadcasts it onto the
> network. One can even make a comparison between 'frequency &
> modulation' with 'IP & service'.
no, it isn't.
  By that argument, you could say that a hard disk is a broadcast medium -
because the data is there and you can just "tune" to any track and sector
and pull back the information - or a library is a broadcast medium because
you can retrieve books by going there and locating them by section and ISBN
number
  Webcast is marginally a broadcast medium - because ISPs can aggregate
multiple requests into a single datastream - but the internet is largely
search-and-retrieve; it would be surprising to find a webserver sending data
to your isp anyhow "just in case you request it"

Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[Miles Fidelman]

On Sun, 15 Dec 2002, Jim Choate wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Steve Schear wrote:
>
> >  From the article:
> > "The court dismissed suggestions the Internet was different from other
> > broadcasters, who could decide how far their signal was to be transmitted."
> >
> > This is totally bogus thinking. The Internet is not broadcast medium.
>
> Yes, it is. Every site that emits a packet broadcasts it onto the network.
> One can even make a comparison between 'frequency & modulation' with 'IP &
> service'.
>
> > Information from Web sites must be requested, the equivalent of ordering a
> > book or newspaper,

At the IP level, sending an IP packet to a specific address is no more a
broadcast than sending a piece of mail through the postal service.

**
The Center for Civic Networking PO Box 600618
Miles R. Fidelman, President &  Newtonville, MA 02460-0006
Director, Municipal Telecommunications
Strategies Program  617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://civic.net/ccn.html

Information Infrastructure: Public Spaces for the 21st Century
Let's Start With: Internet Wall-Plugs Everywhere
Say It Often, Say It Loud: "I Want My Internet!"
**

Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 02:29 PM 12/15/02 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
>On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Steve Schear wrote:
>
>>  From the article:
>> "The court dismissed suggestions the Internet was different from
other
>> broadcasters, who could decide how far their signal was to be
transmitted."
>>
>> This is totally bogus thinking. The Internet is not broadcast medium.

>
>Yes, it is. Every site that emits a packet broadcasts it onto the
network.

"The network?"  Sorry, its one wire from here to there.  Even a router
with multiple NICs only copies a given packet to a single interface.

>One can even make a comparison between 'frequency & modulation' with
'IP &
>service'.
>
>> Information from Web sites must be requested, the equivalent of
ordering a
>> book or newspaper,
>
>Or tuning your browser to the 'frequecy' of the web server.

For purposes of thinking about *channels* you can use the old "Marconi"
way of thinking of frequency as channel-selector.  The net has under
2^32 x 2^16 (IP x port) endpoints
or 'channels'.

However in detail this mildly useful metaphor breaks down.  In
particular, most protocols (e.g., TCP) set up a virtual, temporary
circuits.  Clients have to request such circuits.  Servers have to grant
them.  Not the
case for a true broadcast net, eg radio.  More like making a phone call.

Do you think when you speak on the phone that you are "broadcasting"
into the Network?
You are not.

---
Of course, words mean different things in Choate-prime.  Apologies to
the C-prime filterers.

Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[David Howe]

at Monday, December 16, 2002 8:34 AM, Major Variola (ret) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
was seen to say:
> "The network?"  Sorry, its one wire from here to there.  Even a router
> with multiple NICs only copies a given packet to a single interface.
That is unfortunately too much of a generalisation - although I would
accept "normally" in that sentence.
there are plenty of setups (broadcast domains, egmp etc) where a single
packet is echoed out of multiple interfaces, and in fact some
amplification attacks rely on that.

Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[David Howe]

at Tuesday, December 17, 2002 5:33 AM, the following Choatisms were
heard:
> Nobody (but perhaps you by inference) is claiming it is identical,
> however, it -is- a broadcast (just consider how a packet gets routed,
> consider the TTL for example or how a ping works).
ping packets aren't routed any differently from non-ping packets - they
bounce up though your ISPs idea of best route to the recipient's ISP,
who then use their idea of best route to the target (leaving aside the
via IP flag). The reply bounces up their ISP's idea of best route to
your ISP, and down though your ISP's best route to you. There isn't a
sudden wave of "ping packet" travelling out across the internet like a
radar pulse, and reflecting back to you - it is a directed transfer of a
single discrete packet.
The best analogy (made by someone else here earlier) is a telephone
call; each call follows a routing path defined by the phone company's
best idea of pushing comms one step closer to the destination at that
time; it may be that a longer route (bouncing via a third country to get
to a second, rather than using the direct line) has a lower "cost" due
to the usage at that time, so that route is used.

RE: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[Bill Stewart]

At 6:11 PM -0800 on 12/12/02, Lucky Green wrote:
> Agreed. A few years ago, some would advocate that on the Internet,
> no national laws apply. This was, of course, nonsense. Instead,
> every single national, regional, and local law in effect today
> anywhere in the world applies to anything you do to the extent that
> said law can be enforced.


Yup.  At least until the internet boycott against Australia succeeds,
we're closer to Tim May's signatures about ~~this posting void where
prohibited by law, may offend local sensibilities, etc~~
than to "just speedbumps on the information superhighway".
Or at best, they're the kind of speedbumps designed to
generate extra business for the local car-repair shops...

At 11:10 PM 12/12/2002 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:


The next trick will be to drive a stake into the heart of modern
society's  present mystification of identity and is-a-person
credentials by moving money and financial assets, significantly
cheaper than we do now, using systems that don't require identity at
all to clear and settle transactions. Systems which are,
paradoxically, cheaper *because* they're anonymous, or at least,
identity "agnostic", just like physics is religiously agnostic.


It was nice to believe this for a while.  Is there any evidence
that it's actually becoming practical or even possible to have
identity-less systems that are less expensive than current processes?
Moore's Law is making it easier to afford fast crypto,
but it and the similar effects in networking costs are making
identity-based settlement systems progressively cheaper,
to the extent that it may not be worth switching.
Or is that just because the companies that have the critical patents
keep going nowhere while they keep the technology locked down?

I'm reminded somewhat of the IP telephony situation -
it's east to get ham-radio-quality VOIP to talk to your friends,
and building a whole new infrastructure based on VOIP
would be radically cheaper than building it with old technology,
and replacing the whole antique structure at once would be
impossible, but would also be much cheaper than doing it piecemeal,
because the interconnections between the old and new sides are ugly.
It's easy to get incremental 0.1 cent minutes, instead of 2-cent minutes,
but there's enough fixed startup cost that it's not worth it for
most business applications (though it would be worth it to replace 29-cent 
minutes.)

Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[Tim May]

On Friday, December 13, 2002, at 08:38  AM, Bill Stewart wrote:


At 6:11 PM -0800 on 12/12/02, Lucky Green wrote:
> Agreed. A few years ago, some would advocate that on the Internet,
> no national laws apply. This was, of course, nonsense. Instead,
> every single national, regional, and local law in effect today
> anywhere in the world applies to anything you do to the extent that
> said law can be enforced.


Yup.  At least until the internet boycott against Australia succeeds,
we're closer to Tim May's signatures about ~~this posting void where
prohibited by law, may offend local sensibilities, etc~~
than to "just speedbumps on the information superhighway".



Both of which I have used at various times, though the "Mandatory 
Voluntary Self-Rating" .sig I tend to use only to make a point, or when 
the fancy strikes me. Included below. It's five or six years old now, 
hence the dated language about V-chips (which I believe are now 
mandated to be in all new televisions, though I never read about anyone 
using them...another silly Washington feelgood law). Updated for today 
it would have B.S. about Cyberspace Security, No Muslim Content, 9/11, 
etc.


--Tim May (Mandatory Voluntary Internet Self-Rating Follows)

V-CHIP CONTENT WARNING: THIS POST IS RATED: R, V, NPC, RI, S, I13.
[For processing by the required-by-1998 V-chips, those reading this post
from an archive must set their V-chip to "42-0666." I will not be held
responsible for posts incorrectly filtered-out by a V-chip that has been
by-passed, hot-chipped, or incorrectly programmed.]

***WARNING!*** It has become necessary to warn potential readers of my
messages before they proceed further. This warning may not fully 
protect me
against criminal or civil proceedings, but it may be treated as a 
positive
attempt to obey the various and increasing numbers of laws.

* Under the ***TELECOM ACT OF 1996***, minor CHILDREN (under the age of 
18)
may not read or handle this message under any circumstances. If you are
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Re: CDR: Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere

[Jim Choate]

On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Miles Fidelman wrote:

> On Sun, 15 Dec 2002, Jim Choate wrote:
> > On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Steve Schear wrote:
> >
> > >  From the article:
> > > "The court dismissed suggestions the Internet was different from other
> > > broadcasters, who could decide how far their signal was to be transmitted."
> > >
> > > This is totally bogus thinking. The Internet is not broadcast medium.
> >
> > Yes, it is. Every site that emits a packet broadcasts it onto the network.
> > One can even make a comparison between 'frequency & modulation' with 'IP &
> > service'.
> >
> > > Information from Web sites must be requested, the equivalent of ordering a
> > > book or newspaper,
>
> At the IP level, sending an IP packet to a specific address is no more a
> broadcast than sending a piece of mail through the postal service.

Nobody (but perhaps you by inference) is claiming it is identical,
however, it -is- a broadcast (just consider how a packet gets routed,
consider the TTL for example or how a ping works). Each packet you send
out goes to many places -besides- the shortest route to the target host
(which is how the shortest route is found).

The comparison is close enough to have validity.


 --


We don't see things as they are,  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
we see them as we are.   www.ssz.com
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Anais Nin www.open-forge.org

[CHOATE FIX] No quantum postcards (Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere)

[Major Variola (ret)]

Seems I have to explain why IP packet routing is not broadcasting some
more.
Those of you who understand that postcards have one trajectory from
you to me can skip this.

My first post was a first-order Choate fix.  This post is a second-order
fix.
I refuse to respond to the next gripe, where JC brings up quantum
postcards that
take all paths at the same time, until you open your mailbox.


At 07:12 AM 12/17/02 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
>On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>> "The network?"  Sorry, its one wire from here to there.
>
>No it isn't, try a traceroute to a regular site that isn't over your
>internal network over several days, why does it change?

In a *virtual* connection, the *physical* paths may change
transparently.  That's what *virtual* means.  Each IP packet
has one path though the sequence of packets may take
different routes.   Perhaps the mailing-postcards analogy
is better than the telco one, since Ma Bell doesn't diddle
the route after call setup AFAIK.  But your postcards,
once injected into the Postal Network, may take different
routes.  Not that you or your recipient knows.

>> In particular, most protocols (e.g., TCP) set up a virtual,
>
>Wrong layer, think of httpd, ftp, telnet, etc.

I was hoping not to have to elaborate, but basically
a UDP based protocol is going to set up some kind
of session "state".  Often duplicating what TCP does.

These are TCP based, although FTP
uses UDP for data but TCP for control.  Httpd is a daemon
not a protocol or app BTW.

>Nobody (but perhaps you by inference) is claiming it is identical,
>however, it -is- a broadcast (just consider how a packet gets routed,
>consider the TTL for example or how a ping works). Each packet you send

>out goes to many places -besides- the shortest route to the target host

>(which is how the shortest route is found).

Modulo CALEA and multi-/broadcast packets, each postcard is handed
off to exactly one other device, or dropped.

At 10:46 AM 12/17/02 -, David Howe wrote:
>there are plenty of setups (broadcast domains, egmp etc) where a single

>packet is echoed out of multiple interfaces, and in fact some
>amplification attacks rely on that.

Yes.  A service which xeroxes
your postcard and resends to everyone in the neighborhood
(or a phone conference call) might be construed as broadcasting to a
limited audience.
But it doesn't scale to WANs.  And is now how the Aussies read Dow Jones
or
how DJ libels Aussies :-)

Re: [CHOATE FIX] No quantum postcards (Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere)

[Jim Choate]

On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Major Variola (ret) wrote:

> Seems I have to explain why IP packet routing is not broadcasting some
> more. Those of you who understand that postcards have one trajectory
> from you to me can skip this.
>
> My first post was a first-order Choate fix.  This post is a second-order
> fix. I refuse to respond to the next gripe, where JC brings up quantum
> postcards that take all paths at the same time, until you open your mailbox.

Yada yada yada...same old CACL bullshit.

> At 07:12 AM 12/17/02 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
> >On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
> >> "The network?"  Sorry, its one wire from here to there.
> >
> >No it isn't, try a traceroute to a regular site that isn't over your
> >internal network over several days, why does it change?
>
> In a *virtual* connection, the *physical* paths may change
> transparently.

Transparently says you, change the rules in the middle of the game and
hope nobody notices.

Thank you for making my point. One must have a physical connection prior
to a virtual connection. That physical network connection is equivalent
for this comparison to the physical connection between radio transmitter
and receiver, which is also shortest path (usually). That phsical
connection will change based on many variables. It is true that more
intelligent routers will cache various pieces of data, and provided the
cache doesn't go stale your route 'from here to there' will stay the same.
The reason that the intelligence was put into the routers was because the
packets were bopping around the network until their TTL went to zero
(each individual packet gets it's TTL decremented each time it hits a
router, until it hits zero when it's dropped, each router either sends it
to a known host on its local net or it's default route - where the process
starts all over again on that adjacent physical localnet).

The comparison to radio and multi-path distortion is also valid with
reference to receipt of multiple copies of a packet (and how prey tell
does that happen? Does the single router send out the same packet twice?
Nope, Different routers send them out and they get to the recipient who
takes them based on first come, first served -by different intermediate
paths-).

Bottom line, if there are n hosts on a network link and a packet is
injected each host gets a shot at it. If the host has sufficient info it
can make intelligent decisions, otherwise it drops back to the TTL so
the network doesn't get completely clogged by stale packets floating
around in limbo for perpetuity.

> Each IP packet has one path though the sequence of packets may take
> different routes.

Gibberish.

> Perhaps the mailing-postcards analogy is better than the telco one,
> since Ma Bell doesn't diddle the route after call setup AFAIK.  But
> your postcards, once injected into the Postal Network, may take different
> routes.  Not that you or your recipient knows.

No they won't. If you drop your postcard in a specific drop point then it
will be picked up and delivered to a specific central routing point. There
it will be collected with others of a similar destination. Then it will be
sent to the appropriate distribution center for that region. From there it
will be sent via truck or air to another distribution center, where the
reverse process takes place. About the only variance is the plane/truck
that is travelling the route between regional distribution centers
probably isn't the same one that took yesterdays mail, but it could be.

The USPS doesn't want your mail being sent all over hell and half of
Georgia, that costs us all way too much money.

> >Nobody (but perhaps you by inference) is claiming it is identical,
> >however, it -is- a broadcast (just consider how a packet gets routed,
> >consider the TTL for example or how a ping works). Each packet you send
> >out goes to many places -besides- the shortest route to the target host
>
> >(which is how the shortest route is found).
>
> Modulo CALEA and multi-/broadcast packets, each postcard is handed
> off to exactly one other device, or dropped.

Actually it's not. Take for example when my ISP send my packet (say this
email for example) out on their T3 or SONET link, there will be MANY
other hosts who will look at it and their inbound routers will try to
route it, unless they happen to know that destination IP is not in their
domain. Once the packet gets on a backbone -many- potential routes see it
and decide to pass it on to their default routes or drop it based on the
routing table and protocols (which are not spec'ed by TCP/IP). This sort
of broadcast is also why Ethernet itself uses the collision detection and
resend the way it does. It's also why Ethernet gets bogged to near
uselessness when the actual network bandwidth load approaches 50%.

This is analogous to tuning your radio to a specific frequency (ie IP
= frequency; protocol = modulation technique). The other issues that you
raise are -really- strawmen.


 --