Beyond Duck Tape
Here's another way to understand the war readiness advice: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/wlee1433/emergency.html .. Blanc
Re: [1st amend] NYT: MTV refuses antiwar commercial
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 6:52 PM -0800 on 3/14/03, Major Variola (ret) wrote: MTV refuses antiwar commercial That's okay, they ran one anyway: http://www.mtv.com/bands/i/iraq/news_feature_031203/index.jhtml Best part is here: http://www.mtv.com/bands/i/iraq/news_feature_031203/index5.jhtml where Blix says that he doesn't fear Iraq as much as he fears global warming, whatever that is. Cheers, RAH Besides the existence of global warming, most MTV viewers also believe that the president, Josiah Bartlett, an economics Nobel winner, conspired with his wife withhold his medical records to hide his currently-remissive multiple sclerosis, in order to get elected and save the planet from capitalism, whatever that is, and the Republican Party... -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0 - not licensed for commercial use: www.pgp.com iQA/AwUBPnKc08PxH8jf3ohaEQLECQCfbXOGJqvE48MkGlV/HiiDN/FX7P0An1rw xlebPxAofDnDbI+VhTtdMPEm =KpVN -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Fatherland Security measures more important than Bennetton tags!
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Adam Shostack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (New York just announced the abolition of tokens, making all subway travel linkable.) The last time I was in New York, you could buy a Metrocard for cash. As far as I know, there are no plans to change this. -- Shields.
Re: [1st amend] NYT: MTV refuses antiwar commercial
People need to start taking out their towers. Easiest way to fix broadcast towers is to wait until just before a lightening storm and then cut the big grounding cables.
Re: Identification of users of payphones
On Friday, March 14, 2003, at 09:24 AM, Adam Shostack wrote: Its possible, but expensive; this was done in the Tim MViegh trial; they linked all his calls, and then traced it to him. With computers, this gets easier and cheaper. Social network analysis is an obvious outgrowth of the traffic analysis NSA has been doing for 60 years. What the world needs is some kind of untraceable, unlinkable system. Attempts to deploy Digicash, Micromint, Peppercoin, blah blah have failed for various reasons. Perhaps we need to rethink this. Perhaps the goals could be accomplished with some form of hard-to-forge physical token? Since this would be a simpler version of the digital coins so often considered by researchers, I suggest the name just be shortened to coins. They could be round, for easy handling. And milled for evidence of having been shaved. They could even be made of precious metals for high-value coins, and of base and inexpensive metals for low-value coins. This would solve the telephone privacy issue. --Tim May That government is best which governs not at all. --Henry David Thoreau
Re: Orwell's Victory goods come home
On Saturday 15 March 2003 12:55 pm, Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote: On Sat, 15 Mar 2003 14:25:51 +, you wrote: So which American on the list is going to write to Congress to demand that the Statue of Liberty be sent back to France? Ken It really should go back to France, as the US seems to care less about liberty than when it received that gift, and France now has quite a profile of opposing foreign domination (from the US) over its policies and interests. So far as I can tell tell, the US approach to other nations is essentially shut up and do what we tell you to do if you love freedom. Americans tend to also forget that the French provided a lot of support for the colonies during the American Revolution. -- Neil Johnson http://www.njohnsn.com PGP key available on request.
Re: [1st amend] NYT: MTV refuses antiwar commercial
On Fri, Mar 14, 2003 at 10:25:20PM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: Best part is here: http://www.mtv.com/bands/i/iraq/news_feature_031203/index5.jhtml where Blix says that he doesn't fear Iraq as much as he fears global warming, whatever that is. Guess I'd have to agree with him on that point alone -- I definitely feel 1000x more threatened by global warming that I do by Saddam Hussein. Or Osama bin Laden, for that matter. And I feel more threateded by Dubbya, Asscruft, et al, than any of the above. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Fatherland Security measures more important than Bennetton tags!
On Sat, Mar 15, 2003 at 08:47:15PM +, Michael Shields wrote: | In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], | Adam Shostack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | (New York just | announced the abolition of tokens, making all subway travel | linkable.) | | The last time I was in New York, you could buy a Metrocard for cash. | As far as I know, there are no plans to change this. Sure. But I said linkable, not traceable. Adam -- It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. -Hume
Re: Fatherland Security measures more important than Bennetton tags!
Stuart wrote: What's to link? All that can be linked is that a metrocard was bought in one place, be it a subway station, deli or whatever, and then used somewhere else, the subway or bus. Hundreds of metrocards are bought at every station every day, used once, and tossed in the trash. All that can be linked is that one anonymous person, along with dozens of others, bought a metrocard and got on the subway a few minutes later, and then vanished into the crush. This largely true except when an employer issues a chit for buying discounted Metrocards. Those can be traced to the employer and then to the employee. Thousands of employers in NYC take part in this program underwritten by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). This is another example of how a usually wary citizen can be induced into being surveilled by gov and biz by free or discount deals. If you think you can't be tracked by postage stamps, by cash-paid tickets, by a burgeoning gaggle of seemingly ordinary transactions, then you may need to read surveillance business literature more closely. Not the diverting, high-profile national security kind. El cheapo, giveaway is where the action is. Say, like the giants of telecom, food, clothing, medical, education, sports, autos, entertainment, lotteries, porn, religion, militants, political parties, and, and, oh no, hot tubs and wide-screen displays. Tracing ammo is a piece of cake, and condoms, and girls gone wild tapes. Bet you didn't know GGW is an official sting. So're prepaid phone cards. Name the thing you want most to keep to yourself and 10 to 1 it's dirty with panopticonical taggants. This is the gospel truth, pray, pitiful sinners. The eye's on you sucking your discounted good luck subway tokens. Now that rabbit's foot is being withdrawn by MTA in favor of impossible to trace Metrocards, like the C-notes stuffed around the globe until some dumb ass tries to use them, anonymously.
RE: Unauthorized Journalists to be shot at
At 7:12 AM -0800 3/14/03, Trei, Peter wrote: If the US military does Really Bad Things to Iraqi civilians with any frequency, I have little doubt we'll hear about it in time. There are journalists 'embedded' in many units. In the credit where credit's due department, this change in press relations is one of the better things to come out of the G. W. Bush administration. Compared with the way the press was handled during Gulf War I, this approach is much more likely to bring incidents such as Mai Lai to the light of day. (It also should produce a much better version of, War, the Latest Reality Show, coming to a TV network near you.) Cheers - Bill - Bill Frantz | Due process for all| Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | used to be the | 16345 Englewood Ave. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | American way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
[1st amend] NYT: MTV refuses antiwar commercial
What are the issues when media doesn't take ads? Private media (e.g., a newspaper, a web site) can't be compelled to say, or not say, anything by the state, and so can freely exercise arbitrary editorial control over adverts. What about when the medium is a State-granted monopoly of a resource like RF spectrum? Or cable infrastructure?Should *these* media channels be *compelled* to accept any privately-funded ads, first come first served, *because* of this State-granted monopoly? MTV refuses antiwar commercial http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/13/business/media/13ADCO.html?ex=1048573024ei=1en=292aa6fe6f1edbc8
Re: Orwell's Victory goods come home
So which American on the list is going to write to Congress to demand that the Statue of Liberty be sent back to France? Ken
Re: Give cheese to france?
On Sat, Mar 15, 2003 at 01:44:46PM +, Ken Brown wrote: Harmon Seaver wrote: Ah yes, forgot about that -- the fancy condo right smack in the downtown historic district used to be a while city block of historic buildings people wanted to save, and, in fact, there were developers with money who wanted to restore them, but the city, for some reason no one could figure out, condemned them, took the whole block with eminent domain, then razed the whole thing -- with no plan whatsoever in mind for what would replace it. Or so it seemed. Then they sold the whole block to this other developer for one dollar, and gave him a ton of TIF to build a big, very modern, condo which doesn't even remotely jive with the rest of the area. This same city council approved a zone change from church/residential to business with no knowledge, supposedly, of what or who the purchaser of the property would be -- the church said it had to be kept secret. Turns out it's a new Super Wallmart. Isn't it great the way fascism works? That's not fascism - that's old-fashioned public officials acting in their own interests. No, that's fascism -- fascism is the corporate welfare state, the military/industrial complex, prison/industrial complex, etc. And this is how it works on a smaller, more local scale. The first answer to it is democracy. Vote the buggers out. Impossible to do here, they're got a crooked little system set up with no accountability. They changed it decades ago from a ward system to a common council -- meaning that all the council is elected at large, everyone in the city votes for all 6 council members, there's no ward representation at all. This then means that the candidates with the most money win. A lot of people have spent a whole lot of time and effort to get decent people elected, but all that happens is that we end up with one or two good people on the council who are not only outvoted on every issue, but are also constantly browbeaten and humiliated to the point that they don't run again. It's pretty much hopeless. Probably the only way to change it at this point would be a court action on the grounds that it's an unconstitutional form of government -- which it clearly is, think how it would play out if the state legislature or US congress was elected at large. At any rate, unless some civic minded attorney decides to do it out of the goodness of his heart, it won't change, people here are too discouraged to bother trying anymore. The second is resistance. see above The third (not yet tried) is open government. Government should not be allowed to keep secrets from citizens, and the words commercial in confidence on a contract signed by government should invalidate it. Local governments are people we employ to fix the drains and clean the streets and make sure he schools stay open. No reason we should tolerate them doing deals behind our backs. Where is this happening? -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: Orwell's Victory goods come home
On Sat, 15 Mar 2003 14:25:51 +, you wrote: So which American on the list is going to write to Congress to demand that the Statue of Liberty be sent back to France? Ken It really should go back to France, as the US seems to care less about liberty than when it received that gift, and France now has quite a profile of opposing foreign domination (from the US) over its policies and interests. So far as I can tell tell, the US approach to other nations is essentially shut up and do what we tell you to do if you love freedom.
'no rationale' for spy satellite inspection ?
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030314readdy/ Humm... Is someone trying to hide their footprints ??? There was rationale for 3 tiles in the beginning of the Space Shuttle program... Aife
Re: [1st amend] NYT: MTV refuses antiwar commercial
The official reason MTV rejects issues based ads is that they want to prevent the rich from buying up lots of airtime. Assume the average MTV viewer is younger and lefter than the average organiztion with a lot of money, and it makes some sense. I think their policy should be money on wood gets you 30 seconds on the air, within technical parameters . However, a policy of no issues based ads, if it makes viewers happier by preventing organizations opposed to the average MTV viewer from buying time, seems like a good commercial decision. To be consistent, they should really be rejecting the anti-drug PSAs, though, but that's too easy a source of non-cash revenue to give up. If I were a TV producer, I would absolutely demand no PSAs run during my show. (I looked into this when the spoof drugs fund terrorism? then legalize drugs ads were prepared and didn't get to air as widely as would be good.) http://www.mpp.org/WarOnDrugCzar/commercials/index.html http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v97/n015/a06.html (MTV, anti-drug ads) (I don't like marijuana, personally. I dislike the government more, but I think if one is going to smoke a politician, .300winmag is better than a bong...your lungs and fellow citizens will thank you) -- Ryan Lackey [RL960-RIPE AS24812] [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1 202 258 9251 OpenPGP DH 4096: B8B8 3D95 F940 9760 C64B DE90 07AD BE07 D2E0 301F
Re: Unauthorized Journalists to be shot at
Major Variola (ret) wrote: I'd think that the troops would explain this to the reporters tagging along as they confiscate all their transmitters before an op. I simply wouldn't trust the reporters, even though they're toast too if someone mis-IFFs. Its a lot more serious than not shutting off your cell phone on a plane. Besides, I doubt the reporters have Iraq's FCC's clearance to use those frequencies there, until we extend the Little Powell's authority to that domain. :-) Kate Adie's broadcast (which I heard on the BBC) was in the context of a discussion of non-embedded reporters. She claimed that all the best news from Gulf War 2 had been from people who weren't bedding with the military. The ones who are being threatened are the ones with the temerity to travel independently rather than under military orders. There was also a comment by Robert Fisk to the effect that (I can't remember the exact words): There will be a war on. There is no law in a war, you can do whatever you can get away with. In an article I found online Fisk gives his rules of thumb for spotring compromised reporters: - Reporters who wear items of American or British military costume helmets, camouflage jackets, weapons, etc. - Reporters who say we when they are referring to the US or British military unit in which they are embedded. - Those who use the words collateral damage instead of dead civilians. - Those who commence answering questions with the words: Well, of course, because of military security I can't divulge... - Those who, reporting from the Iraqi side, insist on referring to the Iraqi population as his (ie Saddam's) people. - Journalists in Baghdad who refer to what the Americans describe as Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses rather than the plain and simple torture we all know Saddam practices. - Journalists reporting from either side who use the god-awful and creepy phrase officials say without naming, quite specifically, who these often lying officials are.
Re: Unauthorized Journalists to be shot at
At 11:22 AM 03/13/2003 -0800, Eric Cordian wrote: This is nothing new. Radio and TV stations and other unauthorized sources of information are always first on the target list whenever the US starts a war. At the beginning of Part I of this war they showed the smart bomb or cruise missile or whatever blowing up the Baghdad phone company building. As someone who works for the phone company, I have to say this pissed me off :-) I think the Pentagon spokeshomo put it this way. Propaganda outlets ARE military targets. Propaganda being anything not released by the Pentagon, of course. Peter Trei wrote: Stopping useful information on *ongoing* operations from reaching the enemy has been a normal, unremarkable part of waging war for over 150 years. During the initial bombing campaign in Part I, Ramsay Clark and some journalists did a week-long couple-thousand-mile drive around Iraq filming the damage being done. One of the important parts was showing downtown Baghdad apartment buildings being bombed because they were near bridges or the water system or other strategic targets and interviewing the people who lived there. In spite of all the commercials for smart bombs and cruise missiles, most of the armament dropped on Iraq back then was dumb iron bombs; one group of people were starting to think about blowing up their own bridge so that the Yankees would stop bombing their apartments when they missed. If this part of the war starts, civilian areas in downtown are much more likely to be part of the target space than before, because it's about Regime Change, not repelling invading armies.
Re: Give cheese to france?
Harmon Seaver wrote: Ah yes, forgot about that -- the fancy condo right smack in the downtown historic district used to be a while city block of historic buildings people wanted to save, and, in fact, there were developers with money who wanted to restore them, but the city, for some reason no one could figure out, condemned them, took the whole block with eminent domain, then razed the whole thing -- with no plan whatsoever in mind for what would replace it. Or so it seemed. Then they sold the whole block to this other developer for one dollar, and gave him a ton of TIF to build a big, very modern, condo which doesn't even remotely jive with the rest of the area. This same city council approved a zone change from church/residential to business with no knowledge, supposedly, of what or who the purchaser of the property would be -- the church said it had to be kept secret. Turns out it's a new Super Wallmart. Isn't it great the way fascism works? That's not fascism - that's old-fashioned public officials acting in their own interests. The first answer to it is democracy. Vote the buggers out. The second is resistance. The third (not yet tried) is open government. Government should not be allowed to keep secrets from citizens, and the words commercial in confidence on a contract signed by government should invalidate it. Local governments are people we employ to fix the drains and clean the streets and make sure he schools stay open. No reason we should tolerate them doing deals behind our backs.
Re: Fatherland Security measures more important than Bennetton tags!
On Saturday, March 15, 2003, Adam said... AS On Sat, Mar 15, 2003 at 08:47:15PM +, Michael Shields wrote: AS | The last time I was in New York, you could buy a Metrocard for cash. AS | As far as I know, there are no plans to change this. AS Sure. But I said linkable, not traceable. AS Adam What's to link? All that can be linked is that a metrocard was bought in one place, be it a subway station, deli or whatever, and then used somewhere else, the subway or bus. Hundreds of metrocards are bought at every station every day, used once, and tossed in the trash. (Actually, most of them get tossed on the train tracks.) All that can be linked is that one anonymous person, along with dozens of others, bought a metrocard and got on the subway a few minutes later, and then vanished into the crush. Of course, they may decide to issue each 'citizen' their own metrocard, permanent, for 'security reasons'. Or maybe they'll just use our national ID card as our metrocard/drivers license/ez-pass. But as it is now, if the card is used only once, there is no other information that can be used to link that card to anyplace or anyone else. There was one guy a few months ago who was convicted of a rape or murder or something, mostly because of evidence from his metrocard. That was only possible because it was a weekly unlimited metrocard and he still had it in his wallet when he got picked up. -- stuart I want to suggest that citizens of free societies do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow citizens' opinions, even their most cherished beliefs. Salman Rushdie
Re: Identification of users of payphones
At 08:03 PM 03/14/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote: They could be round, for easy handling. And milled for evidence of having been shaved. They could even be made of precious metals for high-value coins, and of base and inexpensive metals for low-value coins. This would solve the telephone privacy issue. However, they did have other problems. We once had a cypherpunks meeting at Soda Hall in Berkeley, and unlike the usual problems finding parking, I was pleased to find that a bunch of spaces on the street that used to have parking meters had the working parts removed and replaced with flowerpots. While the flowerpots were a nice Berkeleyish touch, the basic cause wasn't a desire to have unrestricted parking, it was a discovery by teenagers that there were pots of money sitting around waiting for people with metal pipes to collect them. Pay phones also have this problem :-) They also have the problem that it costs money to send people around to collect the coins, as opposed to collecting data over wires you've already got, and then there's the problem that there are people driving around in trucks full of money... and of course the problem of deciding whether round pieces of metal have the right politicians' pictures on them without cryptographic help. On the other hand, by switching the money part to coinage, it would free up the data connections for the surveillance cameras.
Re: Give cheese to france?
At 09:44 AM 03/14/2003 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: Marx was primarily an economist, and a lot of what he had to say bore listening to. I had to read that twice, because my reaction to reading Das Kapital was that it was not only spectacularly boring, but spectacularly clueless as well. The Labor Theory of Value has some glimmer of a clue behind it, but the value of something is the value to the user, though the seller's cost curves will be influenced by the labor that went into it.
