Re: Carnivore To Get "Magic Lantern"

2001-11-21 Thread mean-green

At 05:53 PM 11/20/2001 -0800, FogStorm wrote:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/660096.asp?0si=-&cp1=1

...

  MAGIC LANTERN installs so-called keylogging software on a suspect's
machine that is capable of capturing keystrokes typed on a computer. By tracking
exactly what a suspect types, critical encryption key information can be
gathered, and then transmitted back to the FBI, according to the source, who
requested anonymity.
  The virus can be sent to the suspect via e-mail perhaps sent for the
FBI by a trusted friend or relative. The FBI can also use common vulnerabilities
to break into a suspect's computer and insert Magic Lantern, the source said.
  Magic Lantern is one of a series of enhancements currently being
developed for the FBI's Carnivore project, the source said, under the umbrella
project name of Cyber Knight.

>>>

Possible countermeasures:
1. Air gap - run your pgp client from a machine which is never connected to the net
2. Add ID token (e.g., Dallas Semi iButton) support to gpg 




Re: Carnivore To Get "Magic Lantern"

2001-11-21 Thread Eugene Leitl

On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> 2. Add ID token (e.g., Dallas Semi iButton) support to gpg

Doesn't suffice, if you see/encrypt clear on a compromised machine. Air
gap or a dedicated hardened crypto machine (embedded with a private eye
type of display connected to the main machine via a simple, provably
secure protocol).

Airgap (MOD sneakernet) is the easiest solution so far. But we've been
through this before.




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IP: Encryption: How Prevalent Is It? (fwd)

2001-11-21 Thread Eugene Leitl



-- Eugen* Leitl http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/";>leitl
__
ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204
57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 09:35:31 -0500
From: David Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: IP: Encryption: How Prevalent Is It?


>Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 09:27:00 -0500
>From: "Dorothy E. Denning" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Organization: Georgetown University
>
>Encryption: How Prevalent Is It?
>Oct. 15, 2001 By Lisa Boomer-Smith
>
>
>
>To learn more about encryption practices, InformationWeek Research fielded a
>national survey this summer with the President's Export Council
>Subcommittee on
>Encryption. Of the 500 sites surveyed, two-thirds report using encryption to
>protect company data. Of those sites using encryption technologies, 71% are
>strongly committed to data encryption, while 21% are somewhat committed.
>
>
>
>http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20011011S0015
>
>See also: http://www.informationweek.com/857/encryption.htm
>
>--
>Prof. Dorothy E. Denning
>Georgetown University
>http://www.cs.georgetown.edu/~denning


For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/




IP: Risks of belief in identities: [risks] Risks Digest 21.74 (fwd)

2001-11-21 Thread Eugene Leitl



-- Eugen* Leitl http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/";>leitl
__
ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204
57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 08:57:54 -0500
From: David Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: IP: Risks of belief in identities: [risks] Risks Digest 21.74


>Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 11:54:17 PST
>From: "Peter G. Neumann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Risks of belief in identities
>
>For those of you who might believe that national ID cards might be a good
>idea, check out the December 2001 *Commun.ACM* Inside Risks column by me
>and Lauren Weinstein, previewed on my Web site
>   http://www.csl.sri.com/neumann/insiderisks.html
>in anticipation of a U.S. House hearing next Friday on that subject.
>
>It is not just the cards themselves that would entail risks, but even moreso
>all of the supporting infrastructures, widespread accessibility to
>networking, monitoring, cross-linked databases, data mining, etc., and
>particularly the risks of untrustworthy insiders issuing bogus
>identification cards -- as happened a few years back on a large scale in the
>Virginia state motor vehicle agency (RISKS-11.41).
>
>The latest item on the ease of getting phony or illegal or unchecked
>identification papers is found an article by Michelle Malkin (Creators
>Syndicate Inc.), which I saw in the *San Francisco Chronicle* on 10 Nov
>2001: Abdulla Noman, employed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, issued
>bogus visas in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in one case in 1998 charging
>approximately $3,178.  The article also notes a variety of sleazy schemes
>for obtaining visas, in some cases without ever appearing in person and
>without any background checks, and in other cases for ``investments'' of a
>hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  The article concludes with this
>sentence: ``Until our embassy officials stop selling American visas blindly
>to every foreign investor waving cash, homeland security is a pipe dream.''
>I'm not sure that conclusion is representative of the full nature of the
>problem of bogus identification, but the problem is clearly significant.
>A driver's license or a passport or a visa or a National ID card is not
>really proof of identity or genuineness or anything else.


For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/




Re: Pricing Mojo, Integrating PGP, TAZ, and D.C. Cypherpunks

2001-11-21 Thread Steve Schear

At 05:04 PM 11/20/2001 -0700, Anonymous wrote:
>Some thoughts on digital cash.
>
>First, using anonymous cash to purchase physical goods online means giving
>up much of the benefit from the anonymity.  If you have to give a delivery
>address, they obviously know who you are.  It's still slightly better
>than using your Visa card because only the seller learns your address
>rather than a centralized agency that knows all of your purchases.
>But it's hardly worth it.

Coin (or better yet eGold) operated rental, non-USPS, parcel delivery 
locker business.

>Second, using digital cash for purchases in the real world (grocery stores
>etc) is pretty much impossible today and relatively pointless anyway since
>physical cash exists.  There might be some slight advantages in terms of
>not having to carry cash, resistance to theft, etc., but from the privacy
>perspective, things are about as good as they are going to get in the
>physical world.  It's only going to go downhill from here.  It may not
>be as bad as Scott "Get Over It" McNealy claims but realistically the use
>of surveillance cameras and face recognition systems is going to increase.

ATMs dispensing currency for ecash


>Fourth, the significant exception is of course pornography, and
>we've had debates about whether it would make sense to create a
>privacy-protecting electronic payment system that catered to the porn
>market.  It's profitable, it's information, and there are significant
>privacy considerations for some customers.
>
>Unfortunately the greatest sensitivity to privacy comes with illegal
>products like child pornography.  And the Reedy case has to be a
>significant cautionary tale.  Thomas Reedy was proprietor of an age
>verification service which had a couple of overseas child pornographers
>among its customers; he ended up with life imprisonment for what was
>essentially a payment collection service.  Any digital cash system
>for the porn market would therefore have to screen its clients (the
>sellers) very closely.  It's the buyers to whom you are selling privacy,
>not the sellers, so this is not inconsistent with the business model.
>But it could be expensive.  And by eliminating illegal porn you would
>be turning away much of your potential business, leading to a constant
>temptation to cross the line as Reedy did.

Offshore operation from less prudish countries.


>Can we identify other markets, other applications where cash or cash-like
>technology can be useful?  MojoNation is a good example.  Their mojo is
>intended to be a cash substitute to optimize load balancing and data
>distribution.  Unfortunately the MN network lacks compelling content
>and the economy is still crude.  use

Automated publication from file names and meta-data. Removal of limitations 
of file size enabling publication of high quality video content.


>Imagine if all these systems could be served by a single virtual currency,
>where resources and work donated in one forum earned points which would
>entitle you to privileges in another.  Eric Hughes proposed something
>similar back in the days of the text-based MUD and MOO online games, so
>that you could transfer quota from one system to another.  Or consider the
>example recently where several people expressed interest in having someone
>go back to the early cypherpunk archives and select interesting threads.
>What if each of us had some virtual cash we could transfer to whomever
>did the work.

eGold is already available.


>The point is that there is a possibility today for an online market in
>informal, peer to peer style information services.  There is work to be
>done, services to provide which remain entirely in the virtual world.
>If you could be rewarded for work you do online with "cash" that would
>allow you to request similar services from others, the monetary system
>can get off the ground.  This might be a more promising start for a
>virtual currency than attempts to tie it immediately to dollars.

eGold has shown a substantial and profitable, though still not mainstream 
market, exists for an unregulated electronic currency.  A similar system 
tied to dollars, pounds or marks, is greatly desired.

steve




Re: Risks of belief in identities

2001-11-21 Thread Anonymous

>From: "Peter G. Neumann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Risks of belief in identities
>
>For those of you who might believe that national ID cards might be a good
>idea, check out the December 2001 *Commun.ACM* Inside Risks column by me
>and Lauren Weinstein, previewed on my Web site
>   http://www.csl.sri.com/neumann/insiderisks.html

The criticisms in this essay have nothing to do with national ID cards
per se.  The points have nothing to do with the cards being national,
with them proving ID, or with them being in the form of a card for
that matter.  What the essay really argues against is any attempt to
prove that someone has been checked for a certain property by showing
a document.  Documents can be forged, biometrics are imperfect, and the
employees who issue the documents can be bribed.

By this argument, we should have no driver's licenses, credit cards,
or paper cash for that matter.  Everything stuffed into your wallet
is useless.  Any one of those items could be forged or could have been
given to you improperly.  But we find them to be useful anyway.

In actuality, no one in politics is seriously pushing for a national
ID card.  However they are talking about having an air travel card
which would allow holders to go through an expedited security check.
Neumann's arguments apply just as strongly against such a card (which
need not have ID printed on it at all), further proving that he is not
in fact opposing a national ID card but any kind of carried credential.




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IP: Wanna make biological weapons and take out cities? $10. (fwd)

2001-11-21 Thread Eugene Leitl



-- Eugen* Leitl http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/";>leitl
__
ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204
57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 14:37:50 -0500
From: David Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: IP: Wanna make biological weapons and take out cities?  $10.


>Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 10:58:28 -0600
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Wanna make biological weapons and take out cities?  $10.
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17
>
>Here's a disturbing story from today's New York Times:
>
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/21/national/21BOOK.html?todaysheadlines
>
>I sure hope that the government is investigating and following each and every
>person who buys a copy of this book... I wonder if there's a way to force
>Tobiason to foot the bill for that security?
>
>In any case, jerks like this clearly aren't helping to keep our nation
>secure...
>if anything, crap like this will make our government MORE repressive (not
>less).
>
>[quote]
>
>November 21, 2001
>
>THE HOW-TO BOOK
>In Utah, a Government Hater Sells a Germ-Warfare Book
>
>By PAUL ZIELBAUER with WILLIAM J. BROAD
>
>SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 19 — At the "Crossroads of the West" gun show here last
>weekend, weapons dealers sold semi- automatic rifles and custom-made pistols,
>and ammunition wholesalers unloaded bullets by the case. But perhaps the most
>fearsome weapon for sale in the cavernous, crowded exposition center was a
>book.
>
>Next to the Indian handicraft booth, Timothy W. Tobiason was selling
>printed and
>CD copies of his book, "Scientific Principles of Improvised Warfare and Home
>Defense Volume 6-1: Advanced Biological Weapons Design and Manufacture," a
>germ-warfare cookbook that bioterrorism experts say is accurate enough to be
>dangerous.
>
>Mr. Tobiason, an agricultural-chemicals entrepreneur from Nebraska with a
>bitter
>hatred for the government, said he sold about 2,000 copies of his
>self-published
>book a year as he moved from gun show to gun show across America. The book,
>which includes directions for making "mail delivered" anthrax, suggests
>that the
>knowledge necessary to start an anthrax attack like the one that has
>terrorized
>the East Coast is readily accessible.




For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/




ALL NATURAL ALTERNATIVE

2001-11-21 Thread bigbassman5






To be removed from future mailings
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Re: Pricing Mojo, Integrating PGP, TAZ, and D.C. Cypherpunks

2001-11-21 Thread Steve Schear

At 01:00 AM 11/21/2001 -0500, dmolnar wrote:
>On Tue, 20 Nov 2001, dmolnar wrote:
>
>
> > > Isn't this a description of Hawala?
> >
> > Maybe. I regret I'm not familiar with Hawala. I'll go google it.
>
>Gee, it's even in the cypherpunks archives. Sorry, everyone.
>
>Yes, as described sure sounds similar. The point of doing it over PayPal
>would just be to make it easy for people on this list to pay Nomen. Even
>though hawala works in the real world, I'm not so sure we could just start
>it and expect it to work here.

PayPal is a poor choice due to fraud and repudiation issues. From a 
transactor's viewpoint one should only exchange harder for softer money 
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:srzsJTHS-xE:www.coconutgold.com/mayscale.html+mayscale&hl=en

However, eGold would be excellent: no repudiations.

First you must identify and reach your potential customers.  Does anyone 
know where I could get a relatively list of hushmail addresses?


>One thing that came to mind while reading about it -- does it buy us
>anything in a MIX-net to separate control messages from payload messages?
>This came to mind because one of the descriptions of the hawala network
>seemed to imply that payment would come in from one source and then the
>name of the recipient would come in from another.
>
>The analogy in a MIX-net for e-mail would be having a message delivered to
>a MIX, and then later forwarding instructions for that message delivered
>by someone else. (said instructions identifying message by hash or
>something). Another way to look at this is putting delay in the hands of
>the client. Not clear to me that it helps; maybe make an adversary think a
>certain node is the final destination? I can't think of a MIX design off
>the top of my head which does this. Anyone else? something like this
>discussed way back when?

Does using eGold change the MIX characteristics or feasibility?

Possible downsides
http://www.goldbankone.com/article.php?sid=77


steve




RE: The Crypto-Financial Paradox

2001-11-21 Thread Blanc

>From R. A. Hettinga:

:So, as has ever been the case, whoever builds a robust,
:instantly-settled, identity-independent, internet-ubiquitous
:transaction mechanism that actually works in production for assets
:people want to trade in large quantity is going to do quite well for
:themselves by saving the entire economy a whole lot of money, and not
:just people suffering from the depredations of an increasingly
:powerful nation-state.



But sometimes it seems like it will be a Cold Day in Hell before that
happens.


(Ryan, would you make this your next project?
  We'd all appreciate it *ever* so much.)

  ..
Blanc




Re: IP: Wanna make biological weapons and take out cities? $10. (fwd)

2001-11-21 Thread John Young

Since not many gun shows are held in Manhattan we don't
expect to get a chance to buy one of Tobiason's CDs for 
academic purposes. We offer to purchase a copy of a copy, 
or an original, for say, up to $100 including S&H.

Send to:

John Young
251 West 89th Street
New York, NY 10024

If you want to be paid beforehand let me know how to do
that.

One of the academic purposes is to see how much of the information
on the CD is available elsewhere on the Net just in case the Net is 
being set up to take the Hit along with public libraries and avid
defenders of the Constitution.

As far as I know the CD is not yet illegal in New York State
or City. Libraries and C-defenders are nervous.




The United States of America vs. The Left Coast

2001-11-21 Thread Meyer Wolfsheim

Oregon refuses to ignore basic constitutional rights for the sake of the
war on terrorism:

"Portland police have refused a U.S. Justice Department request for help
in interviewing Middle Eastern immigrants as part of its sweeping
terrorism investigation, saying it would violate state law."

"Arabs and Muslims have expressed outrage at the U.S. Justice Department's
plan to interview the 5,000 men, who are not suspected of any crimes. The
list is comprised of men ages 18 to 33 who entered the United States since
January 1, 2000, from countries that have been linked to the hijackers in
the September 11 attacks or were waystations for the terrorist
organization, al Qaeda."

[...]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/11/21/inv.portland.police.questioning.ap/index.html


Oregon does battle with Ashcroft over physician-assisted suicide laws:

"The judge said his order "nullifies giving any legal effect" to
Ashcroft's directive -- in other words, doctors should not fear legal
repercussions if they follow the Oregon law."

"Ashcroft's order prompted the court challenge, with Oregon officials
saying the government was trying to strip the state of its right to govern
the practice of medicine"

[...]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/11/21/assistedsuicide.hearing.ap/index.html


DEA feds declare war on Californians:

"Unable to find Osama bin Laden or dismantle al Qaeda, the Bush
administration has attacked an easier target -- the 960 mostly AIDS and
cancer patients of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center."

"The basis for the raid is the long-standing state-vs.federal government
dispute over who has say over drug laws. In 1996, California voters
approved Proposition 215, which gave patients the right to possess medical
marijuana. The federal government has refused to recognize the law in
California and eight other states and Washington, D.C., which have passed
similar medical-marijuana measures. Last May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
against the reopening of an Oakland club, a decision cited in last weeks
search warrant."

[...]

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/01/50/news-simmons.shtml


Add that to the raid on the Sacramento doctor and lawyer recently,
resulting in hundreds of seized patient records. Damn pesky West Coast
states, trying to pretend that they still have rights. They're part of the
Union and have to do what Bushcroft says -- except, of course, when it
comes to power outages. Then they're on their own.

Hmm. Anyone see Redmond as the capital of the Independent States of the
Pacific Coast?



-MW-




Re: The United States of America vs. The Left Coast

2001-11-21 Thread Mark Henderson

On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 01:33:57PM -0800, Meyer Wolfsheim wrote:
> Oregon refuses to ignore basic constitutional rights for the sake of the
> war on terrorism

I lived in Portland about ten years back. Nice place. Almost makes me
want to move back. 

> Hmm. Anyone see Redmond as the capital of the Independent States of the
> Pacific Coast?

It seems like you might be advocating break-up of the United States. 
Might be sedition. Off to the electric chair with you for thinking 
bad thoughts... perhaps after a few hours of torture. 

Don't worry too much, with luck they'll let you off if you sign a 
loyalty oath.

This country has become a very scary place.

---
Mark Henderson, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 "Heilir fsir. Heilar asynjur. Heil sja in fjvln}ta fold." - Sigrdrmfumal
OpenPGP/GnuPG keys available at http://www.squirrel.com/pgpkeys.asc




thoughts on proxy services

2001-11-21 Thread Ryan Lackey

[...suggestions on proxy services by Peter Trei...]

(my thoughts follow; might as well post to the list as well since I'd
love for someone else to provide this service vs. me; I care more
about having it available than the eventual revenues it might bring.
But I suspect I'll do it myself; comments from list people would be
useful though.  I would *love* to be surprised by a new and
interesting security company or project doing worthwhile stuff which I
myself would use, even if it's in competition with me.)

(my goals: 100%+ cost recovery.  simple design, implementation, and
operation.  minimal barriers to entry for anyone.  security against
demonstrated threats, and an explicit statement of what risks remain
and maybe how to deal with them later.)

I'm sure the issue of proxying, general traffic analysis protection,
etc. has been discussed many times by people smarter than me, but this
is my basic understanding: do you agree?  If I can't find something
much better, it would be tempting to write a brief summary paper;
nothing really new, but this is an area where a clearly presented
summary could be useful to designers.  (I just deleted about 5 pages
of an attempt to do this; it was just more confusing than it
answered.)

[...safeweb's failed revenue model, good technical model...]

Yeah, the tricky part is making it pay.  Since bandwidth is rather
cheaper in bulk (especially since you can then peer more of it away),
I figure cost per marginal Mbps is 95% of the previous.  I have a
serious surplus of outgoing traffic right now, as do most non-end-user sites;
something which brought inbound traffic would make peering
arrangements easier.

Any traffic which would go to on-Sealand servers anyway is no marginal
cost to me.  Yet, it provides a substantial benefit to server operators;
sure you're talking to a Sealand-hosted server, but which one?  We
have casinos, payment systems, but also some benign content.  The
benefit there is primarily some traffic analysis protection against
outside parties; but you also gain some protection from HavenCo's
customers learning your identity.  At least with the population of
sites we have now, I'm far more concerned about passive monitoring at
the client's LAN or firewall than anything else.  People will "pay"
with time and money if a product solves an actual demonstrated
problem; getting fired for looking at pr0n at work is one of those problems.

An https:// url with maybe http accelerator cache inside the network
and then displaying content in a frame is a first and very easy
solution.  An entirely server-side url rewriter is also possible;
rewrite the html as sent with keyed hash urls or something, translate
on the servers.  But frame is first since it's simple, 100% server
side, and secure.  This also keeps crap out of IE's url history file, and
I can do nocache-rewritting as well on the pages (will have to
experiment with various browsers to see what that really does).  With
a couple of SSL accelerators, this should be fairly cheap to provide.

I'll use that to determine usage patterns, bandwidth consumed, etc.  I
will add more general-interest servers on Sealand (both customers and
free); and perhaps some kind of USENET service, file archive,
discussion board, etc., which will provide a lot of benign cover
traffic.  One of the better arguments against using HavenCo for
anything very sensitive is that even with crypto to the server, you'd be
giving away your participation in an online casino or porn site or
whatever; this will solve that.

I can subsidize random people text-proxying, but I can't do porn or mp3.
I could charge actual site owners to put their porn on Sealand
(normal commercial hosting arrangement), possibly just as an actual mirror
site, vs. moving their primary, to support HavenCo-proxy customers.
An insignificant part of the overall porn market, but maybe a few of
the ~50-100 *big* porn hosters will put a box there just for the 0.01%
of customers who want to access via HavenCo; they then could get
50-100% of that market.  With http accelerator caching, bandwidth
prices would even be reasonable for them.  I think this was where ZKS
missed out with Freedom; cooperation with service providers to
provide on-network anonymous services, assistance in making their
services privacy-compliant, etc. could have made freedom.net actually
contribute to the meaningful (products sold to businesses, not privacy
hobbyists) bottom line.  Oh well.

We do this already with a "net-10" onsite to allow customer to
customer traffic, infrastructure, etc., but making it transparent to
the server operator and using a proxy in normal address space makes
more sense, I think.  The original motivation for using net-10 was to
make accounting simpler, and to "fail secure" (since net-10 isn't
routed); we have flows-based accounting as a possibility, and if you
want fail-secure, net-10 is still a possibility.  

-- 
Ryan Lackey [RL7618 RL5931-RIPE][EMAIL PROTECTED]
CTO and Co-f

Re: IP: Wanna make biological weapons and take out cities? $10. (fwd)

2001-11-21 Thread Tim May

On Wednesday, November 21, 2001, at 12:09 PM, Eugene Leitl wrote:

>
>> Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 10:58:28 -0600
>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Subject: Wanna make biological weapons and take out cities?  $10.
>> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17
>>
>> Here's a disturbing story from today's New York Times:
>>
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/21/national/21BOOK.html?todaysheadlines
>>
>> I sure hope that the government is investigating and following each 
>> and every
>> person who buys a copy of this book... I wonder if there's a way to 
>> force
>> Tobiason to foot the bill for that security?
>>


This "gep2" character is typical of people who don't understand that the 
First Amendment does not give any power to government to ban such 
books...or to "follow each and every person," or to get their identities.

Government agents who infringe the Constitution have earned killing.

The part of the article where the government official says such books 
"should be illegal" is especially telling.

I hope they try to illegalize such books. It will radicalize more 
people, and maybe hasten the day when festering holes like Washington, 
D.C. are annihilated.

--Tim May
"Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice."--Barry Goldwater




Re: CDR: Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)

2001-11-21 Thread Petro


On Saturday, November 17, 2001, at 07:36 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> (in my perfectly humble hate-group inspired opinion :-).  It's also 
> great
> fun watching Jeff and company pretend to be even dumber than your 
> average
> @home luser.

What makes you think they're pretending?

--
"Remember, half-measures can be very effective if all you deal with are
half-wits."--Chris Klein




Re: HOWTO Build a Nuclear Device

2001-11-21 Thread Petro

On Saturday, November 17, 2001, at 09:50 AM, Eric Cordian wrote:
> No ones hair is falling out.  Really.

Well, not from radiation anyway.

--
"Remember, half-measures can be very effective if all you deal with are
half-wits."--Chris Klein




Re: The United States of America vs. The Left Coast

2001-11-21 Thread Steve Schear

At 01:33 PM 11/21/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>Oregon refuses to ignore basic constitutional rights for the sake of the
>war on terrorism:
>
>"Portland police have refused a U.S. Justice Department request for help
>in interviewing Middle Eastern immigrants as part of its sweeping
>terrorism investigation, saying it would violate state law."
>
>"Arabs and Muslims have expressed outrage at the U.S. Justice Department's
>plan to interview the 5,000 men, who are not suspected of any crimes. The
>list is comprised of men ages 18 to 33 who entered the United States since
>January 1, 2000, from countries that have been linked to the hijackers in
>the September 11 attacks or were waystations for the terrorist
>organization, al Qaeda."
>
>[...]
>
>http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/11/21/inv.portland.police.questioning.ap/index.html
>
>
>Oregon does battle with Ashcroft over physician-assisted suicide laws:
>
>"The judge said his order "nullifies giving any legal effect" to
>Ashcroft's directive -- in other words, doctors should not fear legal
>repercussions if they follow the Oregon law."
>
>"Ashcroft's order prompted the court challenge, with Oregon officials
>saying the government was trying to strip the state of its right to govern
>the practice of medicine"
>
>[...]
>
>http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/11/21/assistedsuicide.hearing.ap/index.html
>
>
>DEA feds declare war on Californians:
>
>"Unable to find Osama bin Laden or dismantle al Qaeda, the Bush
>administration has attacked an easier target -- the 960 mostly AIDS and
>cancer patients of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center."
>
>"The basis for the raid is the long-standing state-vs.federal government
>dispute over who has say over drug laws. In 1996, California voters
>approved Proposition 215, which gave patients the right to possess medical
>marijuana. The federal government has refused to recognize the law in
>California and eight other states and Washington, D.C., which have passed
>similar medical-marijuana measures. Last May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
>against the reopening of an Oakland club, a decision cited in last weeks
>search warrant."

I can't see any constitutional basis for the FDA (or much of the FAA or FCC 
regulations for that matter). Perhaps not regulating California marijuana 
clinics impacts marijuana clinics in other states: empty Commerce Clause 
justification.

steve




RE: The Crypto-Financial Paradox

2001-11-21 Thread R. A. Hettinga

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-

At 1:09 PM -0800 on 11/21/01, Blanc wrote:

> From R. A. Hettinga:



>> actually works in production for assets
>> people want to trade in large quantity

> But sometimes it seems like it will be a Cold Day in Hell before
> that happens.


Helps if you're actually plugged into and loading value from, say,
the ATM network, or, more fun, something like CREST, or even DTC,
getting us what Schear and I called unsponsored network depository
receipts, back in the day.

Relying on those networks for debit/credit authentication for the
loading problem looks sucky on a first approximation, nothing can be
farther from anonymous, obviously, but once a fungible, and more
important, exchangeable, asset like cash or securities in a custodial
account is subsequently reserved in the account of an underwriter and
represented in bearer form on the net, it can go anywhere it wants --
until,  anyway, it has to go off the net to be put into an identified
account again. Someday, of course, the money stays on forever, and
that's when things get interesting, and that might happen sooner than
we think. Certainly lots of people as has been noted, have figured
out ways to mix the money around once it's there, if that's necessary
for one thing or another.


When IBUC did some work with CRESTCo earlier this year, we figured it
would cost about a million pounds to demo, including the work on
CREST itself, about 2 million pounds for the lawyers, :-), and a few
more mil to go from there into production, not including marketing,
if any.  Since the white-label ATM hardware/software/account service
is out there already, and FSTC's done lots of net-side work already,
a plain-old retail cash product might even be faster to do, once the
banking community -- and, oddly enough, the regulators who weren't
*that* negative on the idea once it was explained to them -- crawl
out from their desks someday.

> (Ryan, would you make this your next project?
>   We'd all appreciate it *ever* so much.)

Not to un-swash his buckle, and all that, because he really deserves
massive kudos for what he's done with HavenCo., but Ryan's already
tried that, once before, on Anguilla, if we all remember, and it
wasn't at all pretty (cf. Declan's articles earlier this year about
the E-Gold/Systemics pissing contest).

I figure this is going to have to be a front-door operation, actually
resident in a financial-center city like London or New York (Boston
would do, I suppose :-)), and not something with servers parked on an
artillery platform, however cool that might be to think about at a
distance. Fortunately, the economic/technology front door keeps
getting opened wider, which, I suppose, was the point of my post to
begin with. It's going to happen, sooner or later, and it doesn't
really matter who does it first.


Even more fun, doing a bearer-form depository receipt instrument
collateralized by any security in CREST, including the S&P 500, is
completely doable right now, up to and including an ATM patch from
CREST to the Link network in the UK. We had proposals flying around
as early as March/April last year from people you've heard of and
they were completely serious. They just got dot-bombed. Transaction
volumes at London depositories, custodians and underwriters, of
course, went in the shitter, and nobody wanted to talk about tomorrow
anymore while they were dodging bullets today.

Pretty spooky, having actual appreciable assets on the net in bearer
form, but it really is that close. Or, at least it was that close
until September 11. And, like I said before, people shouldn't even
afraid of even that anymore.

Cheers,
RAH

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: PGP 7.0

iQEVAwUBO/wuzcUCGwxmWcHhAQGrvQf/R6DNBfZxtOAcITJwjROWxttZje4iwlv1
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hcQheuLcBGoRofnlpMKFZ+tlzI+s7tHfRTtDbGvBn1X+/5o5pddY6n/xFuEPuonb
cIVcP9l2/fASh50QqQEm+QtKz9d0EGehde1QTcZgLGITFGIRjiTVgsjdZFeCK0uF
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=eCLn
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-- 
-
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: The Crypto-Financial Paradox

2001-11-21 Thread Ryan Lackey

Bob Hettinga wrote:

> Quoting "Blanc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>":

> > But sometimes it seems like it will be a Cold Day in Hell before
> > that happens.

> > (Ryan, would you make this your next project?
> >  We'd all appreciate it *ever* so much.)

I think I've figured out why ecash hasn't been deployed.

1) "Math is hard!  Let's go shopping!"
2) Yet, ecash can be used for shopping.

The resulting paradox has rendered ecash a logical impossibility :)

> Not to un-swash his buckle, and all that, because he really deserves
> massive kudos for what he's done with HavenCo., but Ryan's already
> tried that, once before, on Anguilla, if we all remember, and it
> wasn't at all pretty (cf. Declan's articles earlier this year about
> the E-Gold/Systemics pissing contest).

Twice, actually, if you count HINDE.

(unclear if 0 for 2 is better than 0 for 1; I actually think so.
 Better than 0 for 0 regardless.)

-- 
Ryan Lackey [RL7618 RL5931-RIPE][EMAIL PROTECTED]
CTO and Co-founder, HavenCo Ltd.+44 7970 633 277 
the free world just milliseconds away   http://www.havenco.com/
OpenPGP 4096: B8B8 3D95 F940 9760 C64B  DE90 07AD BE07 D2E0 301F




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Re: Pricing Mojo, Integrating PGP, TAZ, and D.C. Cypherpunks

2001-11-21 Thread Anonymous

David Molnar wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Nov 2001, Anonymous wrote:
>
> > than using your Visa card because only the seller learns your address
> > rather than a centralized agency that knows all of your purchases.
> > But it's hardly worth it.
>
> A friend of mine was considering a business plan for physical remailer+
> "infomediary" for a class project a year or two ago. Precisely to get
> around this problem. Sell learns the remailer's address. More than a few
> remailers and you can chain them, etc. etc.

Unfortunately U.S. postal regulations require identification when you
rent a mail box, public or private.  See
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/audio/private_mail_box.htm:

   Recent amendments to postal regulations will make it harder for
   criminals to victimize innocent consumers by using mail drops.

   Anyone renting a box from a commercial mail-receiving agency such
   as Mail Boxers, Etc., Parcel Post, and Postnet will be required to
   provide two forms of ID, one being a photo ID.

It won't do much good to chain them if each one in the chain has your
ID on file.  Granted you can use fake ID but that would be breaking the
law, raising the costs considerably.




RE: Pricing Mojo, Integrating PGP, TAZ, and D.C. Cypherpunks

2001-11-21 Thread Sandy Sandfort

Someone wrote:

> Unfortunately U.S. postal regulations
> require identification when you rent a
> mail box, public or private
>
> It won't do much good to chain them if
> each one in the chain has your ID on file.
> Granted you can use fake ID but that would
> be breaking the law, raising the costs
> considerably.

US postal regs end at the US border.  The rest of the world is full of mail
drops, accommodation addresses and mail forwarding services.


 S a n d y




RE: IP: Wanna make biological weapons and take out cities? $10. (fwd)

2001-11-21 Thread Blanc

>From Tim May:

:I hope they try to illegalize such books. It will radicalize more
:people, and maybe hasten the day when festering holes like Washington,
:D.C. are annihilated.
-


But what I anticipate would happen at that point is another Afghanistan,
with ten thousand bloomin' territories full of prickly warring tribes and
war lords.

The first thing which happens after a power vaccuum is created is that
another group steps in to "establish law and order", with the acceptance,
support, and relief of the majority (coincidentally, right now it feels like
the Taliban is growing on these shores).

History repeats itself.  What would prevent it from doing so again?

  ..
Blanc




Fuck the U.S. Police State and the Tens of Millions who Police It

2001-11-21 Thread Tim May

On Wednesday, November 21, 2001, at 02:08 PM, Mark Henderson wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 01:33:57PM -0800, Meyer Wolfsheim wrote:
>> Oregon refuses to ignore basic constitutional rights for the sake of 
>> the
>> war on terrorism
>
> I lived in Portland about ten years back. Nice place. Almost makes me
> want to move back.
>
>> Hmm. Anyone see Redmond as the capital of the Independent States of the
>> Pacific Coast?
>
> It seems like you might be advocating break-up of the United States.
> Might be sedition. Off to the electric chair with you for thinking
> bad thoughts... perhaps after a few hours of torture.

Alan Dershowitz is calling for torture only after at least at GS-12 in 
an accredited office building electronically authorizes the torture.

Tribunals for terrorists like us ("if they are terrorists, they have no 
rights") will be carried out in military bases around the nation.
> Don't worry too much, with luck they'll let you off if you sign a
> loyalty oath.
>
> This country has become a very scary place.
>

Besides sedition, this is also treason.

P.S. Fuck this nation. Fuck it to death. It has long been a festering 
pool of democracy. Now it has discarded what remained of constitutional 
foundations. Kill it before it multiplies. By any means necessary.


--Tim May, Corralitos, California
Quote of the Month: "It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes; 
perhaps there are no true libertarians in times of terrorist attacks." 
--Cathy Young, "Reason Magazine," both enemies of liberty.




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Re: Pricing Mojo, Integrating PGP, TAZ, and D.C. Cypherpunks

2001-11-21 Thread Declan McCullagh

On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 04:22:36PM -0800, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
> US postal regs end at the US border.  The rest of the world is full of mail
> drops, accommodation addresses and mail forwarding services.

Or, even inside the U.S., you could run an anon mail-receiving locker
(insert $20 bill for two days, much like train station lockers)
service if you only accepted FedEx/UPS/etc. letters and
packages. Obviously it would cost more for users, but for sufficiently
valuable cargo...

-Declan




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Re: The United States of America vs. The Left Coast

2001-11-21 Thread Meyer Wolfsheim

On Wed, 21 Nov 2001, Steve Schear wrote:

> I can't see any constitutional basis for the FDA (or much of the FAA or FCC
> regulations for that matter). Perhaps not regulating California marijuana
> clinics impacts marijuana clinics in other states: empty Commerce Clause
> justification.

Question to the lawyerly-types:

What would happen if California passed a law making seizure of marijuana
plants from an approved medical marijuana facility a criminal offense?

The local sheriff's department should then be responsible for preventing
such criminal raids by the DEA, and the agents involved should be arrested
and prosecuted.

How would this play out, both on the street and in the courts?


-MW-




Re: Risks of belief in identities

2001-11-21 Thread Declan McCullagh

It's important to be clear about what characteristics of a national ID
card are objectionable. Among those may be a requirement that it be
shown on demand, that it be tied to databases that track movements,
etc. What is disturbing about a national ID card is not the fact that
it's standardized, for instance, but an array of features that could
crop up elsewhere.

It is possible to imagine a scenario where a database-linked,
biometric-tied system using driver's licenses is worse -- that is,
more privacy-invasive -- than some forms of a "national ID card."

I posted more on a SiliconValley.com roundtable recently:
http://forums.siliconvalley.com/discussion/msgshow.cfm/msgboard=5968009897410465&msg=8036926450156813&page=1&idDispSub=5145094516046185

-Declan

On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 06:33:22PM -, Anonymous wrote:
> >From: "Peter G. Neumann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Subject: Risks of belief in identities
> >
> >For those of you who might believe that national ID cards might be a good
> >idea, check out the December 2001 *Commun.ACM* Inside Risks column by me
> >and Lauren Weinstein, previewed on my Web site
> >   http://www.csl.sri.com/neumann/insiderisks.html
> 
> The criticisms in this essay have nothing to do with national ID cards
> per se.  The points have nothing to do with the cards being national,
> with them proving ID, or with them being in the form of a card for
> that matter.  What the essay really argues against is any attempt to
> prove that someone has been checked for a certain property by showing
> a document.  Documents can be forged, biometrics are imperfect, and the
> employees who issue the documents can be bribed.
> 
> By this argument, we should have no driver's licenses, credit cards,
> or paper cash for that matter.  Everything stuffed into your wallet
> is useless.  Any one of those items could be forged or could have been
> given to you improperly.  But we find them to be useful anyway.
> 
> In actuality, no one in politics is seriously pushing for a national
> ID card.  However they are talking about having an air travel card
> which would allow holders to go through an expedited security check.
> Neumann's arguments apply just as strongly against such a card (which
> need not have ID printed on it at all), further proving that he is not
> in fact opposing a national ID card but any kind of carried credential.




why market to Joe Sixpack?

2001-11-21 Thread dmolnar

Declan's comment on operating a physical remailer for suitably valuable
cargo, plus some of Tim's recent comments about integration, made me think
of the question in the subject line. So far I see at least three possible
answers.

1) Make lots of money.

2) Spread awareness (that "funny feeling in the stomach" recently
discussed) and save our fellow man. Make the world safe for privacy.

3) Ensure that cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies have uses
besides "Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse," so that they aren't banned.

anything else?

I think the physical remailer for only FedEx will fail 3.

-David




RE: why market to Joe Sixpack?

2001-11-21 Thread Sandy Sandfort

David wrote:

> Declan's comment on operating a physical
> remailer for suitably valuable cargo,
> plus some of Tim's recent comments about
> integration, made me think of the
> question in the subject line. So far
>I see at least three possible answers.
>
> 1) Make lots of money.
>
> 2) Spread awareness (that "funny feeling in the stomach" recently
> discussed) and save our fellow man. Make the world safe for privacy.
>
> 3) Ensure that cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies have uses
> besides "Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse," so that they aren't banned.
>
> anything else?

Yes, a corollary to 2) is that by saving our fellow man, we are saving
ourselves as well.  The elitist idea that it doesn't make any difference
what happens to the little people is wrong-headed.  Because the world is set
up to make cars affordable for the little people, you and I can have
personal automotive transportation at a fraction of the cost if we were to
try and assemble them up in Galt's Gulch.  If crypto gets wide-spread use by
the little people, our use will be lost in the noise.


 S a n d y




Re: The Crypto Winter

2001-11-21 Thread Petro


On Saturday, November 17, 2001, at 05:49 PM, David Honig wrote:

> At 03:15 PM 11/17/01 -0800, Karsten M. Self wrote:
>> on Sat, Nov 17, 2001 at 01:36:32PM -0800, alphabeta121
>> ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>>> what does C-A-C-L stand for?
>>
>> Crypto-Anarcho Capitalist Libertarian, per archives.  Shorthand for a
>> common, if not prevailing, political viewpoint among active 
>> listmembers.
>>
>
> That label is
>
> 1. inconsistent (libertarian & anarchy)

Not necessarily. It is argued both that Libertarians are 
chicken-shit anarchists (afraid to take the last step)  or that 
Anarchists are just extreme Libertarians.

Also, keep in mind that there are many "anarchist" philosophies, in 
fact almost as many as there are anarchists, and all of them (well most 
of them) have rules or laws.

> 2. redundant ('capitalist' and libertarian)

No. Libertarians are for "free markets", which are inherently 
capitalistic in nature, but the reverse is not true.  There are many 
*wealthy* capitalists who are all for strongly regulated markets and 
high barriers to entry. One could argue that they are not Capitalists.

> 3. nonsensical --cryptography is a neutral technology with debatable  
> social consequences

The "Crypto-" part of "Crypto-Anarchist" may in fact have nothing 
at all to do with cryptography.

> 4. one poster's label; and anyone can post here
> Your milage may vary.

Not by much. It's almost always between 48 and 51 MPG.

--
"Remember, half-measures can be very effective if all you deal with are
half-wits."--Chris Klein




Weizmann Institute Amazes World Again

2001-11-21 Thread Eric Cordian

You know, when I saw the headline for this story, the words "Weizmann
Institute" immediately leaped into my head.

It's just that certain something about Weizmann Institute press releases
that reminds me of University of Utah press conferences back in the days
of Cold Fusion.

In any case, the folks at the Weizmann Institute are now claiming to have
developed the "trillion would fit in a test tube" DNA computer.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/011121/107/199x5.html

-
   
LONDON (Reuters) - Following Mother Nature's lead, Israeli scientists have
built a DNA computer so tiny that a trillion of them could fit in a test
tube and perform a billion operations per second with 99.8 percent
accuracy.
   
Instead of using figures and formulas to solve a problem, the microscopic
computer's input, output and software are made up of DNA molecules --
which store and process encoded information in living organisms.
   
Scientists see such DNA computers as future competitors to for their more
conventional cousins because miniaturisation is reaching its limits and
DNA has the potential to be much faster than conventional computers.
   
"We have built a nanoscale computer made of biomolecules that is so small
you cannot run them one at a time. When a trillion computers run together
they are capable of performing a billion operations," Professor Ehud
Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute in Israel told Reuters on Wednesday.
   
It is the first programmable autonomous computing machine in which the
input, output, software and hardware are all made of biomolecules.
   
Although too simple to have any immediate applications it could form the
basis of a DNA computer in the future that could potentially operate
within human cells and act as a monitoring device to detect potentially
disease-causing changes and synthesise drugs to fix them.
   
The model could also form the basis of computers that could be used to
screen DNA libraries in parallel without sequencing each molecule, which
could speed up the acquisition of knowledge about DNA.

...

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"




Re: Pricing Mojo, Integrating PGP, TAZ, and D.C. Cypherpunks

2001-11-21 Thread jamesd

--
On 20 Nov 2001, at 17:04, Anonymous wrote:
> Third, this leaves the use of digital cash to purchase
> information goods and services online.  The problem is, few
> companies have succeeded so far in selling information
> goods online

As you mention below, pornography is the big exception.

Of course, control over assets is also an informational good,
though not one that has been successfully put online yet.
The cypherpunk dream will be close to realization when
liability is limited not by the decree of the state but by
the difficulty of discovering who the owners of a business
are.

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 omb+0fl57agPOUEzge7hMd8nVf7S5Qhuhj8H1YWY
 4y+BQDxfgXp2UJcabXRe61UEv+6AWGmQpItvkZ9ym




Re: why market to Joe Sixpack?

2001-11-21 Thread Tim May

On Wednesday, November 21, 2001, at 08:51 PM, dmolnar wrote:

> Declan's comment on operating a physical remailer for suitably valuable
> cargo, plus some of Tim's recent comments about integration, made me 
> think
> of the question in the subject line. So far I see at least three 
> possible
> answers.
>
> 1) Make lots of money.
>
> 2) Spread awareness (that "funny feeling in the stomach" recently
> discussed) and save our fellow man. Make the world safe for privacy.
>
> 3) Ensure that cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies have uses
> besides "Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse," so that they aren't banned.
>
> anything else?
>

I'll take the other side of the argument. Not because I have anything 
against Joe Sixpack using strong crypto, remailers, anonymous markets, 
markets for assassinating tyrants, data havens, and all the rest.

But

* Many have knocked themselves out trying to get the masses to encrypt 
all of their e-mail...guess what? Most people don't want to jump through 
hoops to send innocuous messages to their friends. Even more so, fewer 
of us want to be lectured at that we "should" be using crypto at all 
times.

* The "sell to the masses" argument is largely why the focus of crypto 
has been spinning its wheels in issues of "integrating with common 
programs." Sounds great to do so, except that the fast rate of change of 
mailers and other programs means the established programs tend to 
"break" with distressing regularity...with not enough people around (and 
being paid) to fix the new incompatibilities.

* Worst of all, the "how do we get Joe and Alice Sixpack to use PGP?" 
focus, and the similar focus for remailers and digital money such as it 
is, has shifted the efforts into the "millicent ghetto" part of the 
value of crypto vs. cost of crypto space I have  discussed. Instead of 
looking at what makes Swiss banks worthwhile for people to fly to Geneva 
to deal with, we have schemes for people buying things they can buy with 
cash or with VISA cards just as efficiently. And instead of anoymizing 
child porn, we have schemes for anonymizing hits on Yahoo's Sports 
pages. No surprise that the customers who live in this millicent ghetto 
say "Huh?"

Put bluntly, I don't see sophisticated money traders and offshore 
bankers beating the drum to get Joe Sixpack using Swiss banks.

How the world might be _different_ or _better_ if crypto and remailer 
and ecash uses were very widespread is not the issue. The issue is that 
selling to such users is difficult for many logical reasons and that 
efforts are better spent developing the technologies and markets in such 
a way that maybe Joe Sixpack will someday follow.

I am willing to admit that it is possible that Cypherpunk notions could 
be "driven from the bottom up." but I see no evidence for this. And I 
see much evidence that the technologies will be adopted by "those who 
care" (those who have something to hide, in common parlance).

An interesting topic, to be sure.


--Tim May
"Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little 
bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now 
racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events 
following 9/11/2001




Re: Weizmann Institute Amazes World Again

2001-11-21 Thread Tim May

On Wednesday, November 21, 2001, at 09:45 PM, Eric Cordian wrote:

> You know, when I saw the headline for this story, the words "Weizmann
> Institute" immediately leaped into my head.
>
> It's just that certain something about Weizmann Institute press releases
> that reminds me of University of Utah press conferences back in the days
> of Cold Fusion.
>
> In any case, the folks at the Weizmann Institute are now claiming to 
> have
> developed the "trillion would fit in a test tube" DNA computer.
> 
> "We have built a nanoscale computer made of biomolecules that is so 
> small
> you cannot run them one at a time. When a trillion computers run 
> together
> they are capable of performing a billion operations," Professor Ehud
> Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute in Israel told Reuters on Wednesday.
>
> It is the first programmable autonomous computing machine in which the
> input, output, software and hardware are all made of biomolecules.


Sounds like the same DNA computing that Adleman was doing several years 
ago.

Also sounds like the same Ehud Shapiro who used to do some good work in 
Flat Concurrent Prolog (FCP), a model for much of the work in Joule and 
E.

A good thing the Department of Hype was brought in to co-author the 
scientific press releases.

--Tim May
"If I'm going to reach out to the the Democrats then I need a third 
hand.There's no way I'm letting go of my wallet or my gun while they're 
around." --attribution uncertain, possibly Gunner, on Usenet