Re: "ID Rules Exist, But Can't Be Seen"

[Bob Jonkman]

This is what Tyler Durden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said
about ""ID Rules Exist, But Can't Be Seen"" on 30 Sep 2004 at 17:06

> For instance, is it indeed possible that revealing this rule would
> pose an additional security risk? If such a rule exists (and it does)
> then hijackers obviously already know about it. Could this rule also
> reveal some deeper secrets about how hijackers can be detected? I
> seriously doubt it.

There's some wonderful Sicilian Reasoning in that: We can't reveal the rule because 
the Bad Guys would figure out what we're looking for.  But the Bad Guys already know 
what we're looking for, but we'll keep the rule secret anyway because we know they 
know what we're looking for. The thing is, the Bad Guys know that too...

Re: Email tapping by ISPs, forwarder addresses, and crypto proxies

[Bob Jonkman]

This is what J.A. Terranson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said
about "Re: Email tapping by ISPs, forwarde" on 24 Jul 2004 at 18:44

> 
> On Sat, 24 Jul 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
> 
> > There might be blind cypherpunks, we don't discriminate[1],
> 
> There Is No We.
> 
> > [1] the original phone phreaks were blind,
> 
> This is a ridiculous statement, and even worse, leaks information
> about your nym: [young enough to have not been there].
> 
> You are thinking of Joe "Whistler" Joe Egressia (sp?), and the kid
> form New York whose names escape me at the moment.  These two do not
> even com close to "the original phone phreaks were blind".  More like
> "at least two of the original batch of phreaks were blind".

Or are you thinking of the "Three Blind Phreaks", profiled in Wired 
magazine earlier this year?

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/phreaks.html


--Bob.

Re: Fact checking

[Bob Jonkman]

This is what Justin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said
about "Re: Fact checking" on 28 Apr 2004 at 19:37

> > Make sure there's a handy "abstain" option for those who want to get
> > the point across about lack of choice, and maybe a space to say why,
> > too. Then stick the (anonymous) reasons up in a publicly-viewable
> > space and eh, instant feedback.
> 
> There is an abstention option.  The poll administrator checks off your
> name when you show up, so someone knows that you "voted."  You don't
> have to choose anyone on your ballot.  You can either toss it in the
> garbage on your way out, or draw pictographs derogatory to politicians
> on non-critical areas of the ballot before feeding it to the
> fiber-starved voting machine.

But then the ballot is spoiled, and not counted.

In Canada we have the option to "decline to vote".  Go to the polling station, 
register 
your name, take the ballot, then tell the clerk that you "decline to vote".  This 
indicates that you believe that no-one on the ballot is a suitable candidate for 
office.  The ballot is counted, but none of the candidates gets a vote.  

This ensures that you don't accidentally elect an unsuitable candidate with a protest 
vote, ie. selecting the lesser of two evils.  By declining to vote you elect neither 
of 
the two evils.

I'm not sure what happens when there are more declined ballots than votes for a 
candidate. Certainly it should draw some media attention to the option of declining to 
vote -- I find that very few people know about it.  It sure caused a stir at our 
polling booth!  

-- -- -- --
Bob Jonkman

Re: PlayFair > Sarovar

[Bob Jonkman]

That seemed short-lived.  Both links to the Playfair project at Sarovar are dead: 
http://sarovar.org/projects/playfair/ and http://playfair.sarovar.org/  The search 
function doesn't come up with anything either...

Has there been any further news on this?

--Bob.



This is what R. A. Hettinga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said
about " PlayFair  > Sarovar" on 12 Apr 2004 at 13:42

> 
> --- begin forwarded text
> 
> 
> To: nettime <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> From: kevin lahoda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject:  PlayFair  > Sarovar
> Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 14:51:11 -0400
> Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Reply-To: kevin lahoda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> Sarovar.org is India's first portal to host projects under Free/Open
> source licenses. It is located in Trivandrum, India and hosted at
> Asianet data center. Sarovar.org is customised, installed and
> maintained by Linuxense as part of their community services and
> sponsored by River Valley Technologies.
> 
>  From Sarovar's < http://sarovar.org/ > Latest News: "After a short
> "vacation" thanks to a Cease and Desist letter from Apple, we're back
> online. Many thanks to Sarovar for hosting us..  -PlayFair "
> 
> Sarovar now hosts The PlayFair project < http://playfair.sarovar.org/
> > which SourceForge has declined in order to avoid tangling with
> Apple's decision to go DMCA on their ass <
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/09/1554203 >. Like something
> from a Gibson novel, I wouldn't doubt if Sarovar rises to meet more
> than another of these occasions in the near future.
> 
> And so, we have more contentious open source code hosted outside of
> the US in order to circumvent unfavorable legal processes.
> 
> Offtshoring in itself is not all that new (another example: <
> http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/provos/honeyd/ >). Here is how this one
> gets interesting:  A big guy - Apple, goes a little sour, another
> (kind of) big guy - SourceForge, takes the easy route, and then an
> offshore repository stands in.
> 
> With all of this, one thing that should not be ignored is that
> SourceForge should be shamed for not holding itself stronger. In a way
> SourceForge's decline of PlayFair and non-usage of the Safe Harbor
> Provision Act < http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/ > is an admit
> of defeat and a failure to stand up for one's (community's) rights.
> 
> What comes out of this?
> 
> Well, maybe Apple wins because they avoid a chance of being tarnished.
> Imagine what consumer level acknowledgment of the reality of Apple
> marketing a clean yet gritty 'Garage Band' motif (with all that punk
> rock implies) while at the same time sleeping with DRM, recently RIAA,
> and now DMCA, could entail... One can easily see that Apple is dancing
> itself into a bit of a gamble. But then again, what does an Ipod
> zombie care about these acronyms anyway?
> 
> What does SourceForge get? Not much. This only makes it easier for
> them to weasle out of the next situation that comes up. Not to mention
> they also missed a good chance to join PlayFair in telling Apple
> what's what.
> 
> k
> 
> http://sarovar.org/ http://sarovar.org/projects/playfair/
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/09/1554203
> http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/
> http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/provos/honeyd/
> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/09/playfair_dmca_takedown/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #   is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets more
> #  info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
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> 
> --- end forwarded text
> 
> 
> -- 
> -
> R. A. Hettinga 
> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation  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: corporate vs. state, TD's education

[Bob Jonkman]

This is what Major Variola (ret) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said
about "corporate vs. state, TD's education" on 25 Mar 2004 at 9:16

> Get this through your head: a corporation can't initiate force against
> you. You may not like their product, practices, or price, but no one
> is coercing you at gunpoint.
> 

Maybe in the good ol' USA, but apparently not so elsewhere.  The 
following quote is from a CBC radio show, "Dispatches", about 3/4 
down the page at http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/thisseason.html

= Start quote =

"In the Congo,...a mining company can pay its taxes and fees to the 
local warlord, knowing full well that the money will be used to arm 
guerillas and kill more people. All perfectly legal. All perfectly 
immoral."

That's a passage from the new book, "Making A Killing: How And Why 
Corporations Use Armed Force To Do Business."

Canadian author Madelaine Drohan has examined the corporate use of 
violence and private militias down through the years, and concludes, 
"you can't trust corporations to wield armed force."

While the cases she documents are all in Africa, in our interview she 
reminds us that Canada was opened up by British fur companies 
operating on the same principle.

= End quote =

The RealAudio transcript is at 
http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/audio/031022_drohan.rm


-- -- -- --
Bob Jonkman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>