Re: Moving beyond "Reputation"--the Market View of Reality

[Ken Brown]

Tim May wrote:

[...]

> >
> > We're not disagreeing. By a "single" value I meant a universally
> > agreed upon value.
> 
> If there is a "universally agreed upon value" for something, and someone
> values it differently, is it still "universal"?
> 
> Nope.
> 
> What there may be are market-clearing prices, in various markets and at
> various times, but this has nothing to do with "universally agreed-upon
> values."


Tim got it right here. The market value of anything is not a universally
agreed price, it is any price at which a buyer and a seller can agree to
do business.

All the discussion about certificates of speaking Navajo or whatever are
slightly beside the point. If personal reputation, as such, has a market
value it isn't the money you'd get by selling the reputation, because as
everyone else already pointed out, if you could sell it, it wouldn't
really be a reputation. The market value of a personal reputation is the
extra money you could get by selling something else, backed by that
reputation.

That sort of reputation is used in real markets every day. I need to get
the hot water boiler in my flat fixed. I would be prepared to pay more
money to a plumber with whatever certificates of plumberhood plumbers
have than I would to someone I just happened to meet down the pub. I
might be happy to spend even more on someone who had done good work for
friends of mine. That sort of reputation has cash value.

It is even more important in pseudo-markets, like the ones in board
memberships of large corporations, or in public offices in the gift of
elected politicians. The kind of people who are called, in England, "The
Great and the Good" - an odd mixture of retired businessmen who have
made enough money, politicians who know they will never get to the top,
academics looking to increase their public profile, and the well-meaning
offspring of rich  and respectable families. Such people sit on
committees, and boards, and commissions, and inquiries, they run 
charities, and schools, and hospitals, and can make a career out of
nothing but reputation. Famous for not even being famous any more. Over
here in Britain we get them worse than  you Americans do do (though you
get them pretty bad, if the list of achievements of the board members of
a couple of US companies I have shares in is anything to go by) - we
have institutonalised it as the House of Lords. Yuck.

Ken Brown

Re: Viridian Note 00283: Geeks and Spooks (fwd)

[Ken Brown]

Eugene Leitl forwarded:

> -- Forwarded message --
> Date: 2 Dec 2001 23:23:55 -
> From: Bruce Sterling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Viridian Note 00283:  Geeks and Spooks
> 
> Key concepts: cryptography, information warfare,
> imaginary products, American national security

[...big article snipped...]

Yee-hah! The most poly-on-topic post that has a appeared in cypherpunks
for a while. Read it early and often. 

Except for the nasty bit about the British near the bottom of course. We
are friendly people really. We couldn't help getting that empire you
know. All you guys just sat around not looking after your countries at
all properly and without anywhere near enough artillery or steam
engines, what did you expect? Trade or something? If it hadn't have been
us it would have been the Germans, or the French, or the Spanish, and 
we're *much* nicer than them.

Ken Brown

[ISN] InfoSec News List Information

[R. A. Hettinga]

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Cryptoheaven

[Marcel Popescu]

Anybody checked the license agreement?

You hereby agree to not use the Service to:

  1.. transmit or store any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening,
abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous,
invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise
objectionable
Hello? Unlawful is bad enough (no Chinese talking about the benefits of
capitalism with this service), but "otherwise objectionable"?

Mark

Re: 256 Bit Encryption for Secure Email and Secure Online File Storage

[Bill Stewart]

At 04:31 PM 12/01/2001 -0800, Meyer Wolfsheim wrote:
>Another proprietary key format. Why not base such a system on OpenPGP?

OpenPGP, ClosedPGP, GPG, PGP2.x, and X.509 all have blazingly ugly data 
formats,
especially for keys.  The main advantages of recycling one of the
N variations on PGP formats or one of the K variations on X.509
are that you can reuse code, and in some cases you can gain compatibility
with existing user bases.  On the other hand, you can gain compatibility
with existing user bases by letting PGP users sign messages saying
"My Cryptoheaven Public Key For Messages is  and for Signatures is 
"
and similarly letting X.509 users do the same if they want.
It's not automated, but it can work ok.

Also, of course, you'd need to register the Rijndael and SHA-256
entities onto the **PG** formatspaces, but they're generally designed for it.

The cleanest key format I've seen is in CryptoKong - it has the
advantage that Elliptic Curve cryptosystems let you use short keys,
at least if you believe that the math works adequately,
and it's not trying to use any "KeyID" as an abbreviation for the key,
so it's just a simple direct encoding of the key,
without PGP's annoyances of KeyID lookup and risks of KeyID forgery.
Of course, it's also not mapping KeyIDs to users, only to messages,
so if you want to maintain relationships between them,
you've got to do it yourself, and if you want to have
senders of some messages vet senders of other messages,
you need to track the messages yourself.  James Donald's implementation
uses an Evil Microsoft Access database to save messages,
but you could do a different implementation if you wanted to.

Was the real motivation for using their own format simplicity?
Or not-invented-here-ness?  Or not-thinking-ness?
Or unwillingness to wade through the huge amount of existing ugly code
just for compatibility with existing ugly formats?
Does it matter much?  They're in the Software / Internet Services business,
so either they'll find a niche where they get lots of users
(in which case it's worth reviewing their code for real security),
or they'll fail to do so and Darwin Will Get Them,
like so many other projects out there, or they'll end up with a
small but fanatic group of users who keep them going,
or somebody will discover a Serious Bug which will blow away their security
(though they do have at least semi-open source available for review.)

Re: 'software error' 37,000 to cato.a "libertarian" institute.

[Marcel Popescu]

From: "mattd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> http://www.mediatransparency.org/Stories/bradley_error.htm

Ok, someone PLEASE enlighten me... WHAT on Earth is the problem here? They
paid TOO MUCH in taxes, so they have to pay a fine???

Mark

Declan murdered george harrison

[mattd]

www.accuracy.org/articles/cato.htm

IPA Articles - Cato Institute
... Libertarian" in a Corporate Way. ... book "No Mercy: How Conservative 
Think Tanks and ... over
the years. Cato's main philanthropic backing ... come from the right-wing 
Koch ...
Description: Article explores the Cato Institute's funding and advocacy, 
which include large tobacco industry funding...
Category: Health > Addictions > Substance Abuse > Tobacco > Industry > 
Supporters
www.accuracy.org/articles/cato.htm - 11k - Cached - Similar pages

Micropayments and accurate polling

[mattd]

203.238.135.35.
Return of Micropayments
By Michael Hurwicz
Early attempts at micropayments have failed. Is it an innovative idea that 
needs more work, or a doomed concept?
Programming with Perl
Want accurate polls? Randal L. Schwartz provides a solution built around 
the fact that form validation using images is too clever for most robots.

from http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/12/

Russian Party of Pensioners Manifesto

[mattd]

Thanks for that,Im going to publish it on Indymedia soon,real soon.

If you are into cryptoanarchy with the emphasis on the anarchy,you may 
enjoy this...

Elliott Abrams, who had pleaded guilty in 1981 to lying to Congress over 
the conduct of the war, was installed by the president to head his "office 
for democracy and human rights". See Tom Lehrer again. His criminal offence 
was described by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer as "a matter of the 
past".
We used to say, NO to Western Imperialism and NO to Soviet Imperialism 
both. Self determination for ALL PEOPLES!
One Empire has fallen. One still has to fall. But we should not mourn the 
passing of the Soviet prison of nations.
The Minister of Education and the Minister of the Interior were 
assassinated. Students and young workers, determined to destroy the 
existing order, turned to the writings of Bakunin and Kropotkin for 
inspiration and with dynamite and pistol hurled themselves against the State.
Working people, many of them recently arrived from the countryside to find 
employment in the vast new factories, elected representatives from their 
own class whom they could trust and whom they could remove at once if 
unsatisfactory. Strikes paralysed production, oppressed national groups on 
the borderlands rebelled, peasants burned and looted, and insurrection 
broke out
The revolt, although short-lived, inspired the young anarchist movement. In 
spite of increased repression, its 'Battle Detachments' raided gunshops and 
armouries in search of the Browning pistols they cherished. Officials, 
police and bosses were murdered and countless 'expropriations' of banks and 
houses of the wealthy took place. Gun battles with police ended in death, 
jail or torture.
This revolution, as a participant observed, was 'a purely spontaneous 
phenomenon, not at all the fruit of party agitation.' People were 'fired by 
a sense of unlimited freedom, a liberation from the restraints of their 
society.'
'Down with Authority and Capitalism' on black banners.
Anarchists seized the mansions of the rich. One became 'The House of Rest', 
with rooms for reading, discussion and recreation and a children's 
playground in the garden.
world-wide revolution based on free federations of urban and rural communes.
In 1908 Nestor Makhno had been given a life sentence for the assassination 
of a police chief. Freed in 1917, he was elected head of the Soviet of 
Peasants and Workers in Gulyai-Polye. With an armed band marching behind a 
huge black banner on which was proclaimed 'Liberty or Death- The Land to 
the Peasants, the Factories to the Workers', Makhno began re-distributing 
the estates to the peasants. In 1918, when Austrian and White armies 
invaded the Ukraine, Makhno's partisans fought back: 'We will conquer not 
so that we may follow the example of past years and hand over our fate to 
some new master, but to take it in our own hands and conduct our lives 
according to our own will and our own conception of truth'.
By the following spring the invaders were driven out and Gulyai-Polye was 
free from external control. Organising regional conferences of peasants, 
workers and insurgents, Makhno began to establish anarchist communes based 
on equality and mutual aid.
At first the Bolsheviks hailed him as a 'courageous partisan' and 'great 
revolutionary', but subsequently attacked him as an 'anarcho-bandit'. Two 
Cheka agents were sent to assassinate Makhno, but the agents were caught 
and themselves shot. When Makhno invited Red soldiers to the Congress, a 
furious Trotsky declared him an outlaw, banned the Congress and sent troops 
to break up the anarchist communes.
At this moment the Whites invaded again, driving on Moscow. Bolsheviks and 
anarchists were sent reeling, yet Makhno's army counter-attacked 
successfully. Trotsky used the time he had been given to re-organise the 
Red Army. By Christmas the Whites were expelled. Makhno's anarchists 
promptly entered Ekaterinoslav, threw open the jails and told the people 
that they were now free to organise their own lives. Freedom of speech, 
press and assembly was declared for all except authoritarian parties, which 
were dissolved. Bolsheviks were advised to 'take up some honest trade'.
Again Trotsky outlawed Makhno and serious fighting raged for eight months 
until Whites invaded yet again. Trotsky appealed for Makhno's help, 
promising in return the release of all imprisoned anarchists and complete 
freedom of expression, short of urging the overthrow of the Bolshevik 
government. The Whites were finally defeated.
With victory secure, Trotsky shot all the Makhnovist military commanders, 
attacked Makhno's HQ and wiped out the staff. The Cheka arrested members of 
the Nabat in Kharkov; throughout Russia, anarchist clubs, groups and 
newspaper offices were raided and closed down. Although badly wounded, 
Makhno, together with the remnants of his insurgent army, evaded the 
Bolsheviks for a year. Escaping eventually to

Re: in praise of gold,

[mattd]

"...nothing more than a cop-out. So it seems to me, at any rate. ~Faustine. "

Like you last week (agent ?) faustine (cop-in?) Silence speaks volumes in 
this house.

Re: libertarian vs. socialist (Im a libertarian socialist!)

[mattd]

"Anarcho capitalism corresponds to what any normal person
would call anarchy"

Who said I was normal? Normal for norte america Yes,maybe.(just say 'so')

>Explanations of "anarcho" socialism are evasive, euphemistic
>and full of equivocations

I dont remember seeing any,Its usually anarchism or libertarian socialism 
or anarcho-syndicalism Isnt it?

When they go into detail, for
example par-econ, they describe in pleasant sounding words a
system more centralized and authoritarian in form and theory
than Stalin's was in form and theory, and often more
centralized and authoritarian even in theory than Maoism was
in actual practice.

I dont recall.Could you cite anarchist stalins and mao's,please?

"before 1936 there were various unclear,
confused, self contradictory, but undeniably sincere
proposals as to how to implement anarcho socialism"

Such as Italian factory occupations?Malatesta who predicted ww2 as ww1 
started was confused? What you say may be true but does it apply to 
anarcho-SYNDICALISM?
Unclear,confused, self contradictory, but undeniably insincere seems to 
apply to someone.

"Then
disaster struck. They actually had a go at it, with entirely
predictable results.  The contradiction between socialism and
anarchism was demonstrated with the usual rivers of blood.
Some became disillusioned.  Some reinterpreted their now
inconvenient past positions as standard socialism. "

Disaster struck for many reasons and it was not all as grim as the stories 
you put on the web.You could cite many more sources on your site that you 
wont thus letting people get away with questioning your honesty and 
motives.I simply agree with those that call you a liar on Spain(you also 
have useful stuff elsewhere, so not being a dead loss)

The anarcho-capitalism you and tim seem so fond of would not survive long 
without all the instruments of state repression backing it up.How long 
would NIKE last in an anarchist world? McDonalds? Monsanto?

Thanks for responding,see you at the 'punks. matthew  proffr  taylor.

Ive just unpacked my PGP but have yet to read the user manual.The intro by 
phill is cool.Dig sig pending.

Council of Europe Cybercrime Treaty

[mikecabot]

The full text is at 
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/WhatYouWant.asp?NT=185

Note that no signatories have signed, and it requires at least 5 to 
sign before going into force.

This is interesting because basically all of Western Europe's IP 
traffic crosses the U.S. at some point, and therefore creates some 
interesting ramifications for U.S. ISPs how do they respond to 
demands for subscriber records and copies of traffic?
___
Want a FREE fast, secure, and permanent email address?
Visit http://www.FastCircle.com

ashcroft still buggering freedom

[Khoder bin Hakkin]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nyt/20011201/ts/ashcroft_seeking_to_free_f_b_i_to_spy_on_groups_1.html

Saturday December 01 09:01 AM EST

Ashcroft Seeking to Free F.B.I. to Spy on Groups

By DAVID JOHNSTON and DON VAN NATTA Jr. The New York Times

Attorney General John Ashcroft is considering a plan to relax
restrictions on the F.B.I.'s spying on religious
and political organizations.

  WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 Attorney General John Ashcroft
is considering a plan to relax
  restrictions on the F.B.I.'s spying on religious
and political organizations in the United States,
  senior government officials said today.

  The proposal would loosen one of the most
fundamental restrictions on the conduct of the
  Federal Bureau of Investigation and would be
another step by the Bush administration to
  modify civil-liberties protections as a means of
defending the country against terrorists, the
  senior officials said.

  The attorney general's surveillance guidelines
were imposed on the F.B.I. in the 1970's after the
  death of J. Edgar Hoover and the disclosures that
the F.B.I. had run a widespread domestic
  surveillance program, called Cointelpro, to
monitor antiwar militants, the Ku Klux Klan, the
  Black Panthers and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr., among others, while Mr. Hoover was
  director.

  Since then, the guidelines have defined the
F.B.I.'s operational conduct in investigations of
  domestic and overseas groups that operate in the
United States.

  Some officials who oppose the change said the
rules had largely kept the F.B.I. out of politically
motivated investigations, protecting the bureau from embarrassment and
lawsuits. But others, including senior Justice
Department officials, said the rules were outmoded and geared to
obsolete investigative methods and had at times
hobbled F.B.I. counterterrorism efforts.

Mr. Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, favor the
change, the officials said. Most of the opposition
comes from career officials at the F.B.I. and the Justice Department.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said today that no final decision had
been reached on the revised guidelines.

"As part of the attorney general's reorganization," said Susan Dryden,
the spokeswoman, "we are conducting a
comprehensive review of all guidelines, policies and procedures. All of
these are still under review."

An F.B.I. spokesman said the bureau's approach to terrorism was also
under review.

"Director Mueller's view is that everything should be on the table for
review," the spokesman, John Collingwood, said.
"He is more than willing to embrace change when doing so makes us a more
effective component. A healthy review
process doesn't come at the expense of the historic protections inherent
in our system."

The attorney general is free to revise the guidelines, but Justice
Department officials said it was unclear how heavily they
would be revised. There are two sets of guidelines, for domestic and
foreign groups, and most of the discussion has
centered on the largely classified rules for investigations of foreign
groups.

The relaxation of the guidelines would follow administration measures to
establish military tribunals to try foreigners
accused of terrorism; to seek out and question 5,000 immigrants, most of
them Muslims, who have entered the United
States since January 2000; and to arrest more than 1,200 people, nearly
all of whom are unconnected to the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, and hold hundreds of them in jail.

Today, Mr. Ashcroft defended his initiatives in an impassioned speech to
United States attorneys.

"Our efforts have been deliberate, they've been coordinated, they've
been carefully crafted to not only protect America
but to respect the Constitution and the rights enshrined therein," Mr.
Ashcroft said.

"Still," he added, "there have been a few voices who have criticized.
Some have sought to condemn us with faulty facts
or without facts at all. Others have simply rushed to judgment, almost
eagerly assuming the worst of their government
before they've had a chance to understand it at its best."

Under the current surveillance guidelines, the F.B.I. cannot send
undercover agents to investigate groups that gather at
places like mosques or churches unless investigators first find probable
cause, or evidence leading them to believe that
someone in the group may have broken the law. Full investigations of
this sort cannot take place without the attorney
general's consent.

Since Sept. 11, investigators have said, Islamic militants have
sometimes met at mosques apparently knowing that the
religious institutions are usually off limits to F.B.I. surveillance
squads. Some officials ar

Reichstag Anthrax: not just greenpeace suggesting it..

[Khoder bin Hakkin]

excerpt from http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/national/03POWD.html

The preliminary analysis of the powder
shows that it has the same extraordinarily high concentration of deadly
spores as the
anthrax produced in the American weapons program. While it is still
possible that the
anthrax could have a foreign source, the concentration is higher than
any stock publicly
known to be produced by other governments.

The similarity to the levels achieved by the United States military
lends support to the idea
that someone with ties to the old program may be behind the attacks that
have killed five
people. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently expanded its
investigation of anthrax
suspects to include government and contractor laboratories as a possible
source of the
deadly powder itself, or of knowledge of how to make it.

"Antenna Amplifier" ends Cellphone static and dropouts

[Zig Chesser]

Title: Antenna Booster

 

  We strongly oppose the use of SPAM email and do not want to send our mailings to anyone who does not wish to receive them. As a result, 
  we have retained the services of an independent 3rd party to administer our list management and remove list (www.removeyou.com). This 
  is not SPAM. If you do not wish to receive further mailings, please click below and enter your email at the bottom of the page. You 
  may then rest-assured that you will never receive another email from us again. http://www.removeyou.com 
  The 21st Century Solution.
  I.D. # 0214310

Re: Russian Party of Pensioners Manifesto

[Ken Brown]

mattd wrote:

[...]

> If you are into cryptoanarchy with the emphasis on the anarchy,you may
> enjoy this...

[...]

> We used to say, NO to Western Imperialism and NO to Soviet Imperialism
> both. Self determination for ALL PEOPLES!
> One Empire has fallen. One still has to fall. But we should not mourn the
> passing of the Soviet prison of nations.

[...]

You miss the point. James & many of the other Libertarians present are
aware past attempts at left anarchism.  But they think that  such
attempts will inevitably  develop into state socialist tyranny, or else 
collapse into a bloody war of all against all, or else  be defeated by
some other group that has already become a centralised tyranny. (In
Makhno's case all three happened, at least partly).

In other words they think that - to nick a Marxist term they probably
wouldn't use themselves - socialism has "contradictions", that you can't
have socialism without tyranny. From their point of view there is no
logical space for "libertarian socialism" or "socialist anarchism".
Someone who claims to be a socialist and yet opposed to state control
will, they think, be either a liar who will turn out to be a Statist in
the end, or someone who hasn't thought things through, who will turn out
to be a capitalist in the end.

I happen to think they are wrong. But stirring quotes from well-known
texts about the Russian revolution won't persuade them. 
The few who are at all interested will have read such stuff before and
already know the (very persuasive) arguments against it. (After all the
Russian revolution really did collapse into ten years of bloody war,
followed by 30 years of Stalinism, then another 30  of mind-numbingly
boring militarised dictatorship and petty cruelty from which anyone in
their right minds would have gladly escaped to America or western
Europe. They aren't making this up)

Of course most of the US libertarians neither know nor care about that
1920s stuff, and going on about it will just confirm their prejudices
about it. Americans tend to be well immunized against socialism - the
only way to get it past their mental blocks is to call it something else
:-)  It was still fun a few years ago when someone posted a chunk of the
Communist Manifesto with references to "the Bourgeoisie" changed to "the
Net" and quite a few of them took it as some recent anarcho-capitalist
rant...


Ken

Re: Moving beyond "Reputation"--the Market View of Reality

[georgemw]

On 3 Dec 2001, at 13:44, Ken Brown wrote:

> All the discussion about certificates of speaking Navajo or whatever are
> slightly beside the point. If personal reputation, as such, has a market
> value it isn't the money you'd get by selling the reputation, because as
> everyone else already pointed out, if you could sell it, it wouldn't
> really be a reputation. 

Well, I thought so, but apparently not everyone does, since there's
been a certain amount of discussion as to whether a nym might be
sold (with associated reputation) and if so how it might be 
accomplished. 

>The market value of a personal reputation is the
> extra money you could get by selling something else, backed by that
> reputation.
> 

OK, I like this as the basis of the value of a repuation  in the 
specific context of an entity that sells goods and services.
I think the concept of reputation in the sense of, say, something
that helps you identify posts worth reading is sufficiently
different as to merit separate discussion. But back to your
above statement. Obviously the value of the rep isn't the
extra you get from a single transaction.  Does it seem reasonable 
to say that  the total value of the rep should be the total
annual extra you get from having the rep times some constant?
I think technically it should be the discounted future value stream,
but I think that works out to be pretty much the same thing.  

George

Fw: [Fwd: Fw: Cow philosophy] (fwd)

[Sunder]

Speaking of cows and poly-ticks...



THE "TWO COW" EXPLANATION OF WHAT MAKES...



A CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT:
You have two cows.You keep one and give one to your neighbor.



A SOCIALIST:
You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your
neighbor.



AN AMERICAN REPUBLICAN:
You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?



AN AMERICAN DEMOCRAT:
You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being
successful. You vote people into office who tax your cows, forcing you
to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then
take the tax money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel
righteous.



A COMMUNIST:
You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with
milk.



A FASCIST:
You have two cows. The government seizes both and sells you the milk.
You join the underground and start a campaign of sabotage.



DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE:
You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to
sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow,
which was a gift from your government.



CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE:
You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.



BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE:
You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the
other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.



AN AMERICAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk
of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.



A FRENCH CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.



A JAPANESE CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of
an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create
clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.



A GERMAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat
once a month, and milk themselves.



A BRITISH CORPORATION:
You have two cows. They are mad. They die. Pass the shepherd's pie,
please.



AN ITALIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for
lunch.



A RUSSIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You
count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and
learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle
of vodka.



A SWISS CORPORATION:
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for
storing them.



A BRAZILIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You enter into a partnership with an American
corporation. Soon you have 1000 cows and the American corporation
declares bankruptcy.



AN INDIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You worship both of them.



A CHINESE CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full
employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who
reported on them.



AN ISRAELI CORPORATION:
There are these two Jewish cows, right? They open a milk factory, an ice

cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to
Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?



AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION:
You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...

Re: Council of Europe Cybercrime Treaty

[Ken Brown]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
> The full text is at
> http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/WhatYouWant.asp?NT=185
> 
> Note that no signatories have signed, and it requires at least 5 to
> sign before going into force.
> 
> This is interesting because basically all of Western Europe's IP
> traffic crosses the U.S. at some point, 

Que?

Tracing route to members.ams.chello.nl [62.108.1.126]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  193.61.22.245
  2   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  144.82.19.103
  3   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  144.82.255.17
  410 ms10 ms10 ms  128.40.255.29
  5   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  128.40.20.190
  630 ms20 ms20 ms  ulcc-gsr.lmn.net.uk [194.83.101.5]
  7   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  london-bar1.ja.net [146.97.40.33]
  8   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  linx-gw.ja.net [128.86.1.249]
  9   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  LINXRT1.chello.com [195.66.224.89]
 1030 ms30 ms20 ms  uk-lon-rc-02-pos-5-0.chellonetwork.com
[213.46.1
60.57]
 1110 ms10 ms10 ms  nl-ams-rc-01-pos-0-0.chellonetwork.com
[213.46.1
60.9]
 1210 ms10 ms10 ms  nl-ams-rd-01-pos-1-0.chellonetwork.com
[213.46.1
60.14]
 1310 ms10 ms10 ms  pos15-0.am00rt06.brain.upc.nl
[213.46.161.54]
 1420 ms30 ms20 ms  srp10-0.am00rt02.brain.upc.nl
[212.142.32.42]
 1510 ms10 ms10 ms  srp0-0.am00rt03.brain.upc.nl
[212.142.32.35]
 1610 ms10 ms10 ms  gig3-0-0.h0rtr1.a2000.nl [62.108.0.82]
 1710 ms10 ms10 ms  members.ams.chello.nl [62.108.1.126]

Trace complete.

2002 USENIX Security Symposium - Call for papers

[Kevin Fu]

Symposium's in San Francisco in August.  Papers due January 28 for review.
In case your mailer doesn't like the way Eudora munges headers while 
forwarding,
it was originally sent by   Kevin Fu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Bill Stewart

===
2002 USENIX Security Symposium - Call for papers

OVERVIEW

Tutorials:  August 5-6, 2002
Technical Sessions: August 7-9, 2002

The USENIX Security Symposium brings together researchers,
practitioners, system administrators, system programmers, and others
interested in the latest advances in security of computer systems.

If you are working on any practical aspects of security or
applications of cryptography, the program committee would like to
encourage you to submit a paper. Submissions are due on January 28th, 2002.

This symposium will last for four and a half days. Two days of
tutorials will be followed by two and a half days of technical
sessions including refereed papers, invited talks, works-in-progress,
and panel discussions.



IMPORTANT DATES

Conference registration information and program will be available in May
2002 on the symposium Web site at   http://www.usenix.org/events/sec02/
If you would like to receive the program booklet in print, please
email your request, including your postal address, to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Paper submission deadline:  January 28th, 2002
Notification to authors:March 25th, 2002
Camera ready due:   May 13th, 2002


SYMPOSIUM ORGANIZERS

Program Chair
  Dan Boneh, Stanford University

Program Committee
  Steve Bellovin, AT&T Labs - Research
  Matt Blaze, AT&T Labs - Research
  Drew Dean, SRI International
  Kevin Fu, M.I.T.
  Brian LaMacchia, Microsoft Corporation
  Patrick Lincoln, SRI International
  Vern Paxson, ICSI
  Radia Perlman, Sun Microsystems Laboratories
  Mike Reiter, Bell Labs, Lucent
  Avi Rubin, AT&T Labs - Research
  Adam Stubblefield, Rice University
  Leendert van Doorn, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
  Wietse Venema, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
  Dan Wallach, Rice University
  Bennet Yee, University of California, San Diego
  Elizabeth Zwicky, Counterpane Internet Security


SYMPOSIUM TOPICS

Refereed paper submissions are being solicited in all areas relating
to systems and network security, including but not limited to:

Adaptive security and system management
Analysis of malicious code
Analysis of network and security protocols
Applications of cryptographic techniques
Attacks against networks and machines
Automated tools for source code analysis
Authentication and authorization of users, systems, and applications
Denial-of-service attacks
File and filesystem security
Firewall technologies
Intrusion detection
Privacy preserving systems
Public key infrastructure
Rights management and copyright protection
Security in heterogeneous environments
Security of agents and mobile code
Security of Internet voting systems
Techniques for developing secure systems
World Wide Web security

Since Usenix Security is primarily a systems security conference,
papers focusing on cryptographic primitives or electronic commerce
models, are encouraged to seek alternative conferences.



REFEREED PAPERS

Wednesday - Friday, August 7-9

Papers that have been formally reviewed and accepted will be presented
during the symposium and published in the symposium proceedings. The
proceedings will be distributed to attendees and, following the
conference, will be available online to USENIX members and for
purchase.

Best Paper Awards

Awards will be given at the conference for the best paper and for the
best paper that is primarily the work of a student.



TUTORIALS, INVITED TALKS, PANEL DISCUSSIONS, WIPS, AND BOFS

In addition to the refereed papers and the keynote presentation, the
technical program will include tutorials, invited talks, panel
discussions, a Work-in-Progress session (WIPs), and Birds-of-a-Feather
Sessions. You are invited to make suggestions regarding topics or
speakers for any of these formats to the program chair via email to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Tutorials (August 5-6)

Tutorials for both technical staff and managers will provide
immediately useful, practical information on topics such as local and
network security precautions, what cryptography can and cannot do,
security mechanisms and policies, firewalls and monitoring systems.
If you are interested in proposing a tutorial, or suggesting a topic,
contact the USENIX Tutorial Coordinator, Dan Klein, by email to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Invited Talks (August 7-9)

There will be several outstanding invited talks at the symposium in
parallel with the refereed papers. Please submit topic suggestions and
talk proposals via email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Panel Discussions (August 7-9)

The technical sessions will also feature some panel
discussions. Please send topic suggestions and proposals to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Work-in-Progress Session (WIPs) (August 9)

The last session of the symposium will be a Works-i

CFP: PKI research workshop

[Carl Ellison]

[Sorry if the headers munge, but I'm using the
Eudora Annoying Redirect command to keep >s from interfering
with signatures.  It's actually from Carl Ellison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ]


-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Included below is the ASCII CFP for our upcoming PKI research
workshop.  We're especially soliciting papers on ways to use public
key authentication/authorization that solve real problems, rather
than merely follow the traditional marketing patter about PKI.

==
===

1st Annual PKI Research Workshop
April 24-25, 2002. NIST, Gaithersburg MD, USA.
www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~pki02/

Sponsors include NIST, NIH, and Internet2.


To a large extent, the hoped-for public key infrastructure (PKI) has
not "happened yet."  PKI for large, eclectic populations has not
materialized; PKI for smaller, less diverse "enterprise" populations
is beginning to emerge, but at a slower rate than many would like or
had expected.  Why is this?

This workshop among leading security researchers will explore the
issues relevant to this question, and will seek to foster a long-term
research agenda for authentication and authorization in large
populations via public key cryptography.  The workshop is intended to
promote a vigorous and structured discussion---a discussion
well-informed by the problems and issues in deployment today.

We solicit papers, panel proposals, and participation.

 * Papers and Proposals Due: January 28, 2002
 * Authors Notified: March 5, 2002
 * Final Materials Due: April 1, 2002
 * Workshop: April 24-25, 2002.


Submitted works for panels and papers should address one or more
critical areas of inquiry.  Topics include (but not are not limited
to):


 * Cryptographic methods in support of security decisions

 * The characterization and encoding of security decision data
(e.g.,
 name spaces, x509, SDSI/SPKI, XKMS, PGP, SAML, KeyNote,
PolicyMaker),
 policy mappings and languages, etc.

 * The relative security of alternative methods for supporting
security
 decisions;

 * Privacy protection and implications of different approaches;

 * Scalability of security systems; (are there limits to growth?)

 * Security of the rest of the components of a system;

 * User interface issues with naming, multiple private keys,
selective
 disclosure

 * Mobility solutions

 * Approaches to attributes and delegation

 * Discussion of how the "public key infrastructure" required may
 differ from the ``PKI'' traditionally defined

Papers should be submitted electronically in PDF.  The final version
of refereed papers should ideally be between 8 and 15 pages, and in
no
case more than 20 pages.  Proposals for panels should be no longer
than five pages in length, and should include possible panelists, and
an indication of which of those panelists have confirmed
participation.

Full instructions will appear on our Web site by December 15, 2001.


Program Committee

 Peter Alterman   NIH
 Steve Bellovin   AT&T Labs Research
 Stefan BrandsMcGill University
 Bill BurrNIST
 Carl Ellison Intel
 Stephen Farrell  Baltimore Technologies
 Richard GuidaJohnson and Johnson
 Peter Honeyman   University of Michigan
 Ken Klingenstein University of Colorado
 Larry Landweber  University of Wisconsin
 Neal McBurnett   Internet2
 Clifford Neuman  USC
 Sean Smith  (chair)  Dartmouth College
 Steve Tuecke Argonne National Laboratory

Contacts

 General Chair: Ken Klingenstein, University of Colorado.
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 Program Chair: Sean Smith, Dartmouth College.
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]




-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: PGP 6.5.8

iQA/AwUBPAlWFHPxfjyW5ytxEQL0tQCeIrRXXnbSpIMeSBxWFonre4VQGpoAnRzG
h4JpL3OKU+ah4WizoLzP4qbj
=wN/e
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


+--+
|Carl M. Ellison [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://world.std.com/~cme |
|PGP: 08FF BA05 599B 49D2  23C6 6FFD 36BA D342 |
+--Officer, officer, arrest that man. He's whistling a dirty song.-+

-
The SPKI Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe spki" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: libertarian vs. socialist (Im a libertarian socialist!)

[jamesd]

--
James A. Donald:
> > "Anarcho capitalism corresponds to what any normal person
> > would call anarchy"

mattd
> Who said I was normal?

If you use the word anarchy to refer to something that is
very far from anarchy as it is normally understood, without
explaining that you are using a special and unusual meaning,
this is lying.  If you were to say:

: : "I am an anarchist, but by anarchist I mean a
: : really really really democratic and decentralized
: : government exercising all power and total power
: : over every person's action and every good, with a
: : general committee to decide all matters of
: : general interest and authorize any truly
: : necessary use of force"

most people would say:
: :  "You are not an anarchist, you are a democratic
: :  socialist -- we already went through that stuff
: :  in the twentieth century. On those rare
: :  occasions when they were both actually
: :  democratic, and actually socialist, the economy
: :  collapsed and they got voted out the next
: :  elections."

James A. Donald:
> When they go into detail, for example par-econ, they
> describe in pleasant sounding words a system more
> centralized and authoritarian in form and theory than
> Stalin's was in form and theory, and often more centralized
> and authoritarian even in theory than Maoism was in actual
> practice.

mattd:
> I dont recall.Could you cite anarchist stalins and
> mao's,please?

If you call the what the authors of ParEcon propose
anarchism, then PolPot was as much an anarchist as they were,
Stalin ten times as much an anarchist as they were, and Mao
one hundred times.

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 OQYECo7+gyIrQKctq60cC1UvKMKkPdfA7ARhBGkw
 4UK2wPuK5XGJbFyc2DKUBMmRzR7WU8jLgbvndXR7N

Re: CDR: Re: Council of Europe Cybercrime Treaty

[mikecabot]

OUTBOUND traffic is what I meant, of course :)

Although, comedy aside, there's an interesting point herein: even a 
lot of traffic that you would normally assume would be intra-Western 
Europe traffic actually crosses into U.S. NAPs -- counterintuitively 
stupid, I know, but it happens more than you might imagine, 
especially for corporate traffic of multinationals and traffic 
inbound/outbound for webhosting companies that are European but in 
reality are getting their pipes from U.S. ISPs.

The same is true of PacRim traffic too, btw (in some cases, even more 
so -- a large percentage of Hong Kong to Australia traffic goes 
through the U.S., for example) -- although of course PacRim traffic 
is not covered by this agreement.


> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>  
> > The full text is at
> > http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/WhatYouWant.asp?NT=185
> > 
> > Note that no signatories have signed, and it requires at least 5 
to
> > sign before going into force.
> > 
> > This is interesting because basically all of Western Europe's IP
> > traffic crosses the U.S. at some point, 
> 
> Que?
> 
> Tracing route to members.ams.chello.nl [62.108.1.126]
> over a maximum of 30 hops:
> 
>   1   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  193.61.22.245
>   2   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  144.82.19.103
>   3   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  144.82.255.17
>   410 ms10 ms10 ms  128.40.255.29
>   5   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  128.40.20.190
>   630 ms20 ms20 ms  ulcc-gsr.lmn.net.uk [194.83.101.5]
>   7   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  london-bar1.ja.net [146.97.40.33]
>   8   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  linx-gw.ja.net [128.86.1.249]
>   9   <10 ms   <10 ms   <10 ms  LINXRT1.chello.com [195.66.224.89]
>  1030 ms30 ms20 ms  uk-lon-rc-02-pos-5-
0.chellonetwork.com
> [213.46.1
> 60.57]
>  1110 ms10 ms10 ms  nl-ams-rc-01-pos-0-
0.chellonetwork.com
> [213.46.1
> 60.9]
>  1210 ms10 ms10 ms  nl-ams-rd-01-pos-1-
0.chellonetwork.com
> [213.46.1
> 60.14]
>  1310 ms10 ms10 ms  pos15-0.am00rt06.brain.upc.nl
> [213.46.161.54]
>  1420 ms30 ms20 ms  srp10-0.am00rt02.brain.upc.nl
> [212.142.32.42]
>  1510 ms10 ms10 ms  srp0-0.am00rt03.brain.upc.nl
> [212.142.32.35]
>  1610 ms10 ms10 ms  gig3-0-0.h0rtr1.a2000.nl 
[62.108.0.82]
>  1710 ms10 ms10 ms  members.ams.chello.nl [62.108.1.126]
> 
> Trace complete.
> 
> 

___
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Reputation of a Reputation

[Tim May]

On Monday, December 3, 2001, at 09:26 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> On 3 Dec 2001, at 13:44, Ken Brown wrote:
>
>> All the discussion about certificates of speaking Navajo or whatever 
>> are
>> slightly beside the point. If personal reputation, as such, has a 
>> market
>> value it isn't the money you'd get by selling the reputation, because 
>> as
>> everyone else already pointed out, if you could sell it, it wouldn't
>> really be a reputation.
>
> Well, I thought so, but apparently not everyone does, since there's
> been a certain amount of discussion as to whether a nym might be
> sold (with associated reputation) and if so how it might be
> accomplished.

This is "the reputation of a reputation."

As soon as people tumble to the fact that "Tom Clancy" has sold his 
nym/reputation to some hack writer, that is, let them put his name on 
their words, then the reputation of "Tom Clancy" falls.

Nothing new here. "Fisher" was a respected (high reputation) name in 
stereo equipment. (I don't like the term "reputation," due to issues 
I've discussed here, but I'm using it in the commonly understood sense.)

The name Fisher was bought by a Taiwan maker of equipment, and one can 
now see "Fisher" on boxes at Costco and Best Buy.

Draw your own conclusions. My own sense is that no one is fooled: those 
young enough not to know what "Fisher" once was don't care. Those old 
enough to know aren't fooled. I expect the brand name Fisher sold for 
very little money, reflecting all of these issues.

Lots of issues here. I'm still composing a longer essay in response to 
Wei Dai's and others' points. Some delays.


--Tim May
--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety 
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.

Re: MD5 (was Re: Antivirus software will ignore FBI spyware: solutions)

[Bill Stewart]

>> > Some interesting tips (bottome of this message) for detecting FBI/SS
>> > snoopware that NAI/McAfee is now assisting the FBI in installing.
>> > I especially like the idea of "type hundreds of random key strokes and
>> > see which files increase in size." (Or just look for any file size
>> > changes, as most of us type tens of thousands of keystrokes per day.)

Especially on Microsoft OSs, it's too easy to create logging
that doesn't look like a regular file for which you can watch
size or checksum changes.  Hidden files are trivial to use,
though many utilities ignore their hiddenness,
but with more work any good virus-writer can do a better
job of hiding a file.  Or you can find things that are
always changing for obscure Microsoftish reasons,
or look like devices that can't be checksummed.

Or you can store the data in the "unused" space at the end
of the last block in a file - especially as disks get larger,
disk blocks also get larger, so there's more space at the ends,
and any utilities that are checksumming files won't notice,
because it's not in the file.  Or you can store the data
in "unused" disk blocks, if you can keep the file system from
reaping them, though diskwipe utilities will occasionally catch these.
The unused block space _might_ sometimes be hidden or overwritten
by encrypted file systems, if you're using them; YMMV.

At 12:45 PM 12/03/2001 +, Gil Hamilton wrote:
>What techniques could be used to do this?  MD5 has some weaknesses,
>but creating collisions still is not trivial.  Unless you know
>something I don't.

Hans Dobbertin's work a couple of years ago makes MD5 sounds pretty shaky,
but you could also use SHA-1 for your checksums,
or your favorite non-crypto fast checksum.
But that's more work than the Fedz will bother with;
much easier to hide stuff on Windows than to hack checksums.

Re: Cryptoheaven

[Bill Stewart]

At 11:55 AM 12/03/2001 +0200, Marcel Popescu wrote:
>Anybody checked the license agreement?
>
>You hereby agree to not use the Service to:
>
>   1.. transmit or store any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening,
>abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous,
>invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise
>objectionable
>Hello? Unlawful is bad enough (no Chinese talking about the benefits of
>capitalism with this service), but "otherwise objectionable"?

It probably means "generates too many complaints to the operators" :-)

Re: Further thoughts on Reputation Capital systems and implementation

[Sunder]

Thanks for the pointer, a very good essay indeed. :)

I haven't checked in any meaningful way, but that thread doesn't seem to
have any replies from Ralph...  Do you recall any details as to what would
cause oscillations?  Would be interesting to explore this.

I expect that having a way to prove collusion by checking who praises
whom, etc. would likely avoid such problems.  As would I suppose personal
observation of current behavior.

Say for instance Mr. Measels manages to accumulate quite a large sum of
positive repcap, if he spews a bunch of the lame ass CJ knockoff messages,
I suspect most people would adjust their cached repcap's of him pretty
quickly - At least I would.  (CJ did/does write kooky messages, but at
least they're funny...)


--Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos---
 + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\
  \|/  :aren't security.  A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\
<--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you   \/|\/
  /|\  :masked killer, but  |don't email them, or put them on a web  \|/
 + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sunder.net 

On Sat, 1 Dec 2001, Adam Shostack wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 05:00:33PM -0500, Sunder wrote:
> | 
> | Say Tim has a repcap of 600, say Declan has 500, and Sandy has 400.  Then
> | I add +1 * 500/X from Declan's repcap and +1 *400/X to Tim's repcap, so
> | now my cache of Tim's repcap might jump to 620.
> 
> Interesting idea.  I proposed something very similar in
> http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1994/09/msg00313.html Raph
> demonstrated a bit later that the system could be forced into
> oscilation and had other problems, although that might have been in
> person, not on list.
> 
> Adam
> 
> -- 
> Imminent death of the list predicted.  Film already in the
> archives, 11/95. 
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: CDR: Re: Speech May Not Be Free, but It's Refundable

[Sunder]

Ok, then I propose to surround your property from any vantage point on
public land, and setup gigantic speakers from which I would recite very
loud speeches in your direction at 3:00am.

As I would be on public land and excercising my freedom of speech, you
couldn't do anything as that would be censorship.  Or are you ready to
submit that "Congress shall make no law ... freedom of expression" only
applies to Congress?


Also, I didn't receive any reply from you on your views of the parable of
the ants and the cricket from your insane CACL thread...


--Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos---
 + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\
  \|/  :aren't security.  A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\
<--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you   \/|\/
  /|\  :masked killer, but  |don't email them, or put them on a web  \|/
 + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sunder.net 

On Sun, 2 Dec 2001, Jim Choate wrote:

> 
> On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Sunder wrote:
> 
> > But by preventing me from trespassing you're restricting my freedom of
> > speech!  According to you, that's illegal.
> 
> Not at all. You are still free to speak, just not on my property.
> 
> You have a right to engage in any behaviour until it infringes another.
> You're trespassing infringes my property right. My not allowing you entry
> doesn't effect your freedom of speech (only who is listening, which
> isn't a right).

Re: Reputation of a Reputation

[Faustine]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Tim wrote:

>This is "the reputation of a reputation."

>As soon as people tumble to the fact that "Tom Clancy" has sold his 
>nym/reputation to some hack writer, that is, let them put his name on 
>their words, then the reputation of "Tom Clancy" falls.

>Nothing new here. "Fisher" was a respected (high reputation) name in 
>stereo equipment. (I don't like the term "reputation," due to issues 
>I've discussed here, but I'm using it in the commonly understood sense.)

>The name Fisher was bought by a Taiwan maker of equipment, and one can 
>now see "Fisher" on boxes at Costco and Best Buy.

>Draw your own conclusions. My own sense is that no one is fooled: those
>young enough not to know what "Fisher" once was don't care. Those old 
>enough to know aren't fooled. I expect the brand name Fisher sold for 
>very little money, reflecting all of these issues.


Great points, but consider the example "Harvard University." People are
willing to pay a premium to be associated with it regardless of the academic
worth of the individual programs in the eyes of specialists. A lot of students
are after the cachet and couldn't care less about the curriculum. But then, 
I'm sure it's a mistake to assume education for it's own sake has the slightest
thing to do with why the majority of people bother going to college at all.
  
Ridiculous how so many employers put such stock in a word on a piece of paper
too--pure credentialism. How ironic when you contrast that with the fact that
the great Herman Kahn didn't have a PhD. I wonder where he'd end up today. 

Someone once remarked that the most unimaginitive, laziest Harvard graduate
students at the bottom of their class tend to end up at the IMF and UN. 
Sort of sinkholes of mediocrity. Oh well!


~Faustine.  



***

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms.
- --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court

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Re: Reputation of a Reputation

[Michael Motyka]

Faustine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Tim wrote:
>
>>This is "the reputation of a reputation."
>Ridiculous how so many employers put such stock in a word on a piece of
paper
>too--pure credentialism. How ironic when you contrast that with the
fact that
>the great Herman Kahn didn't have a PhD. I wonder where he'd end up
today.
>
>~Faustine.
>
What you're complaining about is behavior that is typical of
bureaucracies which often do what is easier instead of what is smarter,
better or right. In a bureaucracy your risk is minimized by following
procedure. Minimizing the risk of individuals within the organization is
not equivalent to optimizing the organization's performance. Hardly a
description of a control system that can keep away from the rails.

Mike

Re: Further thoughts on Reputation Capital systems and implementation

[Erik Seaberg]

This is often known as "collaborative filtering", and pops up in
systems like NoCeM and GroupLens.  What's cool is that you don't need
transitive trust or even poster reputations (anonymity without so much
vandalism!).  Just give the right reviewers the reputation "good/bad
judgment about which articles are worth reading"--and you can find
them by reviewing some articles yourself and measuring similarity of
answers.  If reviewers aren't willing to highly rate articles they
disagree with there's a danger of shutting out unpopular ideas (a
common complaint about /. moderators), and you need a critical mass of
people willing to rate most of a forum to get started (and it can't be
much more than an extra keystroke or two or they won't bother).

http://www.cm.org/faq.html >
http://www.cs.umn.edu/Research/GroupLens/ >

Re: Further thoughts on Reputation Capital systems and implementation

[Marcel Popescu]

From: "Sunder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> Say for instance Mr. Measels manages to accumulate quite a large sum of
> positive repcap, if he spews a bunch of the lame ass CJ knockoff messages,
> I suspect most people would adjust their cached repcap's of him pretty
> quickly - At least I would.  (CJ did/does write kooky messages, but at
> least they're funny...)

I think this is pretty much known behavior: reputation is more easily lost
than gained ("one angry customer tells other nine" and so on).

Mark

Re: Russian Party of Pensioners Manifesto,

[mattd]

http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=20043&group=webcast

For reprint of pensioners story.AND...

Anarchist Pamphlet (28 pages) (english)
by Blake 12:23pm Mon Dec 3 '01
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

This is a critique of the global economy from an anarchist perspective. It 
is meant for outreach to non-anarchists.

Download attached file: anarchistpamphlet.pdf (mimetype: application/pdf )
This is a pamphlet critiquing the global economy from an anarchist 
perspective. It is meant for outreach to non-anarchists. It is written in 
non-technical language and has nice pictures.

It is cryptoANARCHY isnt it? Not cryptolibertarianism.For anarchist and 
social democratic critiques of libertarians,SEE...
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

Esp...   http://world.std.com/~mhuben/cypher.html   I havent seen the 
'blake' one yet,But I am an anarchist getting into crypto and insulted by 
the abuse and disrespecting of anarchism here where its needed the 
most.CRYPTOANARCHY!

CNN and Julie Hilden on the Evil of Anonymity

[Meyer Wolfsheim]

"Most of us now are happy, for example, to tolerate facial recognition
technology at stadiums, and to proffer our driver's licenses at frequent
car, truck and airport checkpoints. We no longer can travel anonymously,
and that may be acceptable given the risks we now face. But while the
ability to travel namelessly may be a prerogative we can sacrifice, what
about the right to speak anonymously?"

[...]

"Finally, to consider some more dramatic possibilities, the government
could launch a denial of service attack on any remaining anonymous
remailers, which guarantee the privacy of both the sender and receiver of
e-mail. It could also simply shut Anonymizer.com down, purportedly in the
interest of national security, or legislate any similar services away."

[...]

"Finally, even if the Court did recognize a First Amendment right to
anonymity that extended to private Internet communications, it is
important to remember that First Amendment-protected speech could be
curtailed, given a compelling government interest and a sufficiently
narrowly tailored government measure. And the compelling quality of the
interest in fighting terror is a given. "

[...]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/11/columns/fl.hilden.online.first.11.29/index.html

Re: Reputation of a Reputation

[Duncan Frissell]

At 03:39 PM 12/3/01 -0500, Faustine wrote:
>Great points, but consider the example "Harvard University." People are
>willing to pay a premium to be associated with it regardless of the academic
>worth of the individual programs in the eyes of specialists. A lot of students
>are after the cachet and couldn't care less about the curriculum. But then,
>I'm sure it's a mistake to assume education for it's own sake has the 
>slightest
>thing to do with why the majority of people bother going to college at all.
>
>Ridiculous how so many employers put such stock in a word on a piece of paper
>too--pure credentialism. How ironic when you contrast that with the fact that
>the great Herman Kahn didn't have a PhD. I wonder where he'd end up today.

Special agents should read the Economist in addition to NLECTC Law 
Enforcement & Corrections Technology News Summary http://www.nlectc.org/.


http://WWW.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=S%26%2BX%28%2FQ%21%3B%26%0A

The lemon dilemma
Oct 11th 2001
 From The Economist print edition

This year's Nobel prize for economics honours work inspired by a simple 
observation about used cars

...

This year's other two laureates, Michael Spence of Stanford University and 
Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia, won their prize for analysing how firms and 
consumers separate the gems from the lemons in a variety of industries.

Mr Spence's early work focused on how individuals use signalling to 
communicate their abilities in the labour market. Job applicants, for 
example, want to distinguish themselves from the mass of other hopefuls. 
They may try to do this in a number of ways, from a fancy suit to a fancy 
education. But for signals to be believable, Mr Spence observed, they need 
to differ substantially in their cost of acquisition. For example, for 
education to work as a credible signal, it must be harder for less able 
employees to get. Indeed, even if such an education gives a student no 
tangible skillsreading classics at Oxford, sayit can still be a useful 
signal of relative quality to employers.

Signalling is used in many markets, wherever a person, company or 
government wants to provide information about its intentions or strengths 
indirectly. Taking on debt might signal that a company is confident about 
future profits. Brands send valuable signals to consumers precisely because 
they are costly to create, and thus will not be lightly abused by their 
creators. Advertising may convey no information other than that the firm 
can afford to advertise, but that may be all a consumer needs to know to 
have confidence in it. Perhaps advertising, as a signal, is not money 
entirely wasted, as some economists argue.

...

It's all about signaling.

DCF


What was the plea bargain which featured the greatest sentence reduction in 
the history of the criminal law?
A reduction from a charge of Sodomy to a charge of Following Too Close.
   --Courtesy of the National Commission for the Preservation of 
Politically Incorrect Law School Jokes.

Re: Reputation of a Reputation,

[mattd]

"...Someone once remarked that the most unimaginitive, laziest Harvard 
graduate students at the bottom of their class tend to end up at the IMF 
and UN. Sort of sinkholes of mediocrity. Oh well! ~Faustine."

Luckily we now have 'open source' AP to take out the ones that get to be 
president.Did you see my 2 previous post F?

1) Faustine wrote...
."..good old boring long-faced church-every-Sunday solid-citizen Robert P.
Hanssen. If his FBI colleagues had been asked to rate him by your above
criteria, he probably would have been in the high 200s all across the
board. And maybe deservedly so. But since those factors weren't in any way,
shape, or form relevant to the fact that he was also the kind of person who
could sell out his country for the sheer pleasure of the game of it, he got
away with murder for years until he got careless and his shitty tradecraft
finally caught up with him."

His tradecraft was rather good I thought,especially in not trusting his
handlers with direct contact.Possibly he was done in by sex addiction
common to many repressed septic tanks(yanks) W.Reichs,mass psychology of
facism describes syndrome.Also wanted on some level to get caught,much like
Ted special K.(and USAma bin laden?)
Did he really get away with murder? Feh.Aldrich ames did and his rep
survived polygraphs so reputations are bollocks unless panocoptincons and
regular stings/tests are done.Hanssen didnt tell the russkies anything they
couldnt have worked out them selves.

No response? Trawling for bigger game? pot bellied,aging brilliant thorns 
in the side of your country? Then...'In praise of gold:

"...nothing more than a cop-out. So it seems to me, at any rate. ~Faustine. "

Like you last week (agent ?) faustine (cop-in?) Silence speaks volumes in
this house.

Im calling you out as a patriotic,slightly dim little bitch at the very 
least,Well?

Re: Further thoughts on Reputation Capital systems and implementation

[mattd]

Response to...This is often known as "collaborative filtering", and pops up in
systems like NoCeM and GroupLens.  What's cool is that you don't need
transitive trust or even poster reputations (anonymity without so much
vandalism!).  Just give the right reviewers the reputation "good/bad
judgment about which articles are worth reading"--and you can find
them by reviewing some articles yourself and measuring similarity of
answers.  Etc,etc.

The last 2 aussi elections have featured something called 'the worm'.Its a 
dial that the studio audience control at the main debates.Individually 
control and all results show as a wavey line(the worm) on TV for the 
masses.A very strong plunge in the worm when talk turned to the new VAT 
tax,the GST. Some biometric feedback on the political reputation of 
politicians.
The fact barely 50% bother voting in the US and UK being another.Rating 
articles is possible at sydney IMC.Often abused IMO.

Emergency!

[mattd]

Emergence - the tendency of systems to evolve and self-organise - is the 
driving theme of an international digital-art conference in Melbourne this 
week.
Second Iteration, at Monash University, will explore the role of artificial 
intelligence, Darwin's theory of evolution and complex systems in modern 
art and music.

In an ongoing cypherpunks emergency,so called libertarians have been 
exposed as right wing,conservative and corporate shills that hijacked this 
list in a low pathetic attempt to divert and dam the exploding 
cryptoanarchist revolution.
Such 'names' as declan,tim  and ,jamesd stand exposed.They are wreckers of 
the revolution.Damn them to hell.

Re: Further thoughts on Reputation Capital systems and implementation

[Sunder]

Right, but will this type of thing cause oscillations, or some sort of
synchronizations, and if so, what are the ways around it...

In some ways I do look at that repcap model as a stock market, but rather
than individual stocks, you have reputations.

--Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos---
 + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\
  \|/  :aren't security.  A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\
<--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you   \/|\/
  /|\  :masked killer, but  |don't email them, or put them on a web  \|/
 + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sunder.net 

On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Marcel Popescu wrote:

> From: "Sunder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> > Say for instance Mr. Measels manages to accumulate quite a large sum of
> > positive repcap, if he spews a bunch of the lame ass CJ knockoff messages,
> > I suspect most people would adjust their cached repcap's of him pretty
> > quickly - At least I would.  (CJ did/does write kooky messages, but at
> > least they're funny...)
> 
> I think this is pretty much known behavior: reputation is more easily lost
> than gained ("one angry customer tells other nine" and so on).
> 
> Mark

Re: Viridian Note 00283: Geeks and Spooks

[mattd]

."... I am suggesting secure, accountable devices with digital signatures 
built in. They're cryptographically time-stamped, their voice signals and 
photographs are cryptographically overwritten, proving their source. They 
are tamperproofed, and very sternly verifiable, and usable as proven 
evidence in courts of law. They're not civilian toys, they are genuine 
weapons of information warfare, in much the same way that an unarmed 
Predator surveillance aircraft is a weapon. They are people's media 
weapons. Their proper use requires some training and discretion; it's like 
a citizen's audiovisual arrest. This is the civilian militia Minuteman 
version of surveillance. The omnipresense of this kind of civilian- owned 
and civilian-deployed surveillance would not make anyone's society kinder 
and happier. But it certainly would make that society a very dangerous 
place for urban guerrillas. And it would not centralize the great power of 
surveillance in the unstable hands of unelected functionaries"

Why stop there? With a personally crypto encoded metalstorm E-Gun you could 
be a 'judge dread',citizen unit of the Anarchist Federation.

Disposable cell phone launches

[Steve Schear]

Summary:
Universal Studios Home Video and Hop-On partnered to launch what they say 
is the first-of-its-kind, disposable cellphone in connection with the 
DVD/home video release of "Jurassic Park III" December 11. The 
limited-edition phone, called the Jurassic Park Survival Cell Phone, 
includes hands-free, voice-activated technology, and it only will be 
available via inserts in thousands of "Jurassic Park III" DVDs and 
videocassettes. The recyclable phone offers 60 minutes of prepaid calling 
time, usable for six months. The free phones will feature a branded 
"Jurassic Park" faceplate to enhance collectability. Hop-On says it plans 
to release a regular disposable cellphone in national retail outlets for 
$30 after this promotion ends.

Full Article:
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., Nov. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major first for the 
entertainment and telecommunications industries, Universal Studios Home 
Video (USHV) and Hop-On (OTC: HPON) have partnered to launch the 
first-of-its-kind, disposable cell phone in connection with the DVD/home 
video release of "Jurassic Park III" on December 11. The limited edition 
introductory phone, a specially-designed Jurassic Park Survival Cell Phone, 
employs the latest hands-free, voice-activated communications technology, 
and will be available only as an exclusive FREE offer via inserts in 
thousands of "Jurassic Park III" DVDs and videocassettes for a limited time.

Cutting-Edge Telecommunications Technology
The exclusive Jurassic Park Survival Cell Phones will offer 60 minutes of 
prepaid calling time without the requirement of a cellular service contract 
or monthly fee. Compact and lightweight in design as well as fully 
recyclable, the cell phones require only two buttons: CALL and END. Using 
mistake-proof, automated voice-recognition dialing, the cell phones include 
a hands-free earbud/microphone to provide safe and convenient 
communication. Once activated, the phones are supported by 24-hour operator 
assistance and last up to six months.

The limited edition Jurassic Park Survival Cell Phone will also feature a 
branded "Jurassic Park" faceplate to enhance collectability. Hop-On plans 
to release a regular disposable cell phone in national retail outlets for 
$30 after the introductory promotion with "Jurassic Park III." The Jurassic 
Park Survival Cell Phone combines the latest cutting edge communications 
product with one of the year's biggest theatrical box-office successes in 
time to capitalize on heightened consumer awareness during the holiday 
shopping season surrounding the home video/DVD release.

The cell phone offer will be communicated via on-pack stickers on all DVD 
and VHS copies of "Jurassic Park III" as well as through in-store 
merchandisers. "Because a cell phone played such a crucial role in 
"Jurassic Park III," we were looking to find a unique telecommunications 
partner to help celebrate the film's release on DVD," said Ken Graffeo, 
senior vice president of marketing, Universal Studios Home Video. "Our 
partnership with Hop-On is ideal and we are thrilled to be bringing the 
next wave of cell phone technology to consumers."

"The Jurassic Park Survival Cell Phone is designed to give consumers easy 
access to help if they need it -- anytime, anywhere," said Peter Michaels, 
chairman and CEO, Hop-On. "As an entrepreneurial communications company we 
are extremely excited to be partnering with one of the most successful and 
dominant global media and communications organizations. Hop-On's phones 
have the potential to revolutionize the communications industry and this 
launch is an important step toward that goal."

Re: in praise of gold

[Faustine]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Morlock wrote:
Faustine wrote:

> > Too bad you seemed to have missed the entire point of the passage: if your
> > relationships are making you bitter and miserable, there's no sense in
> > blaming the other half of the human race for whatever weaknesses of your own
> > cause you to keep seeking out the same old archetypically shitty situations.

> Still, the difference is immaterial.
> Testosterone & stuff on that Y chromosome drive men to seek women and get into
> shitty situations. There is nothing voluntary there, most men have 'clingy'
> need for women. 

Bah. If you've always found that the women who are willing to sleep with you are
irritating, at odds with your emotional temperament and after your money, why
not spare yourself all the headaches and schedule appointments with an escort,
maid service and sperm bank? Seriously, doing a cold-eyed cost/benefit analysis
might save you some real misery in the long run. That so many people are driven
to go through the motions of the very things that bring them the most
unhappiness is a real shame.

Or else, you could keep always looking for a woman who has a view of things
more to your liking. If you're the kind of man who posts here, I can't imagine
you'd have much in common with "average people" anyway. So why fall back on
citing the flaws of the average woman (which, incidentally, I'm not denying) in
this case.


> Characterising not-mine relationships as pathologically-dependent and clingy
> and others as 'drawn to independent' and noble is nonsense.

Who said anything about noble? There are more than enough flavors of
psychological pathology to go around--but of the infinite number of problems
that can come from dating a woman as strong-willed and unsentimental as you
are, being whinily pressured to measure up to an imaginary ideal just isn't one
of them.


> Evolution is not beyond reproach nor Holy Dogma, and I see no reason why
> wouldn't a sensible male* bitch about this parasitic setup.

But nobody's forcing you to shell out cash to goldiggers and breeders: find a
woman who doesn't buy into either scenario and you're in business. They're
certainly out there, just a lot harder to find.


> "Fit" and "unfit" for "human companionship" are far to into nacionalsocialist
> ideology, I'd rather not go there.

It doesn't take a judgment by society at large to realize that some
people really are better off alone instead of inflicting their destructive
fucked-up personality on others (psychotics, alcoholics, etc). On the other
hand, if more people refused to cave in to societal pressures and thought about
what they really wanted to do with their lives (instead of blindly falling into
the "spouse, family, 9 to 5 job" trap out of conformism and a fear of the
unknown) it would be a great thing. 


~Faustine.



***

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms.
- --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court

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Re: in praise of gold,

[mattd]

"It doesn't take a judgment by society at large to realize that some
people really are better off alone instead of inflicting their destructive
fucked-up personality on others (psychotics, alcoholics, etc)."

What about silly little girls inflicting their e-gold (!) opinions.

"if more people refused to cave in to societal pressures and thought about
what they really wanted to do with their lives (instead of blindly falling into
the "spouse, family, 9 to 5 job" trap out of conformism and a fear of the
unknown) it would be a great thing."

Whoopdy doo! Fergedabout ask abbie! Ask Faustine!...only dont ask if 
she/he/its an agent.

Previously posted,she may be what she claims,after aimee,though...

"...Someone once remarked that the most unimaginitive, laziest Harvard
graduate students at the bottom of their class tend to end up at the IMF
and UN. Sort of sinkholes of mediocrity. Oh well! ~Faustine."

Luckily we now have 'open source' AP to take out the ones that get to be
president.Did you see my 2 previous post F?

1) Faustine wrote...
."..good old boring long-faced church-every-Sunday solid-citizen Robert P.
Hanssen. If his FBI colleagues had been asked to rate him by your above
criteria, he probably would have been in the high 200s all across the
board. And maybe deservedly so. But since those factors weren't in any way,
shape, or form relevant to the fact that he was also the kind of person who
could sell out his country for the sheer pleasure of the game of it, he got
away with murder for years until he got careless and his shitty tradecraft
finally caught up with him."

His tradecraft was rather good I thought,especially in not trusting his
handlers with direct contact.Possibly he was done in by sex addiction
common to many repressed septic tanks(yanks) W.Reichs,mass psychology of
facism describes syndrome.Also wanted on some level to get caught,much like
Ted special K.(and USAma bin laden?)
Did he really get away with murder? Feh.Aldrich ames did and his rep
survived polygraphs so reputations are bollocks unless panocoptincons and
regular stings/tests are done.Hanssen didnt tell the russkies anything they
couldnt have worked out them selves.

No response? Trawling for bigger game? pot bellied,aging brilliant thorns
in the side of your country? Then...'In praise of gold:

"...nothing more than a cop-out. So it seems to me, at any rate. ~Faustine. "

Like you last week (agent ?) faustine (cop-in?) Silence speaks volumes in
this house.

Im calling you out as a patriotic,extremely dim little bitch at the very
least,Well?

END reprints 'smart as whip 'F missed in the wash.

(changed slightly dim to the above)Do you take messages for agent 
farr,agent faustine,Ive got a tip for her.

Re: 'software error' 37,000 to cato.a "libertarian" institute.,

[mattd]

"Ok, someone PLEASE enlighten me... WHAT on Earth is the problem here? They
paid TOO MUCH in taxes, so they have to pay a fine???

Mark"
END.

The problem for me is the false advertising on this list RE:Libertarianism.

Its the cypherPUNKS list NOT the cyphershills list.

Debate on Privacy Goes Private

[Steve Schear]

Debate on Privacy Goes Private
In the debate about new surveillance powers for law enforcement officials, 
Americans, in various ways, are asking a basic question: Are we willing to 
curtail personal freedom in exchange for greater national security? Now, a 
debate heating up in Washington puts a twist on the query: Are we willing 
to curtail access to information in exchange for cybersecurity?

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/technology/ebusiness/03NECO.html

Re: IT revealed: Dean Kamen shows off mystery transportion device

[Bill Stewart]

At 09:53 AM 12/03/2001 -0500, Declan McCullagh forwarded articles on
the Ginger Hype Generation Machine finally being revealed.

Boy, what bad timing Kamen has.  Not only is it too late for
Christmas sales (if in fact the things are shipping anytime soon,
as opposed to this being a demo for next Christmas shipping),
but overall it's a year or two too late to catch the Razor Scooter fad
and the San Francisco geek toys market, where there are
some people still commuting on $500 electric scooters
(Doug Barnes used to haul one on Caltrain, for instance),
but an N-thousand-dollar device that's only usable for short hauls
within cities, it'll be a real tough sell.

The real question is whether, next year when he's trying to sell quantity,
anybody will list to the next round of hype.  On the other hand,
this announcement is at least timed to keep people from
totally forgetting him as more dot-com vaporware,
so maybe it's not that bad timing after all.