September 1993 - cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

Let's stick to the topic, folks...
by Andrew Corradini/SBDC 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

For purely practical reasons, could we all please try to limit stuff that'd end up on soda.berkeley.edu in the "rants" directory? ;-) This is a MAILING LIST, not a newsgroup, and some of us have pretty limited space available. Debating constitutional issues, splitting hairs over the difference between libertarianism and anarchism (let ALONE "strong" vs. "weak" anarchy!) is best done in an alt.politics-type setting, no? I didn't subscribe to the list to see 7-level-deep nested quotes arguing over whether anarchy is fundamentally unstable; I suspect most others on the list didn't either. As I understood, and understand, the thrust of the group deals with the TECHNOLOGY and TECHNIQUES involved in the application of cryptography to privacy-related issues and the free distribution of "information", whether dirty pictures, money, or a poem you just wrote to your loved one. NOT the philosophy. Please, for bandwidth's sake, would people please take their back-n-forth's.... *private*?! ;-) (pun fully intended) (deep breath, relax shoulder tension, stepping down from soapbox) Thanks, y'all. I feel much better now. Andrew

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Re: nada against the gubbamess...
by doug＠netcom4.netcom.com 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

loki(a)convex1.TCS.Tulane.EDU (the mischeivious god) said: >Any way question to that point about about elections... > >Who would be ble to be candidates...just anybody ???that would be >almost as bad as our present system...which has people with no relevant >experience except in bullshit and fait de con. Sorry to say that you're a bit confused. The question was how to provide justice under anarchy. I said something about voting. You jumped to the assumption that I was talking about voting for government elections. This is not the case. I was talking about voting on issues of justice, as in a jury. You may want to reread my post with this in mind. As for voting for government in cyberspace, it all depends on the other assumptions. Should there be a virtual government? Should voting for physical-world governments take place on the net? Etc, etc. There is currently no active discussion going on about any of this, so there is no framework for commenting on voting for such things. Doug

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The "Cypherpunk Melting Pot"
by Anonymous 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

On Sun, 12 Sep 93 00:54:18 PDT, <uunet!alumni.cco.caltech.edu!nobody> wrote - > Some comments on the relationship between anarchy and > privacy: > > 1. There have been some recent posts suggesting that > privacy is not fundamentally subversive of > government, and that cypherpunks should emphasize > the privacy and keep quite about the anarchy. I > find these arguments disingenuous in the extreme, > and strategically unsound as well. Bullshit. Privacy is not inherently subversive at all. If you take the time to browse back through the Bill of Rights, you might recognize this paragraph - ARTICLE IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. > 3. The government has shown by its behavior that it > believes that privacy is fundamentally subversive. This is not necessarily true. I agree that Big Brother has gone to the extreme to violate individual privacy in the modern day, but just how does this tie into anarchy? To solely entwine these two idealisms is, in my opinion, a bankrupt strategy. I believe in strong crypto, I believe in privacy. Pinch-hitting for anarchy will damage work for privacy causes. > 4. I personally find privacy, in itself, only mildly > interesting. As a tool to undermine the government, > I find it VERY EXCITING INDEED. Excitement does not define the deed or the end result. Get your cheap thrills at someone else's expense. > 5. Cypherpunks' mission is to evangelize the use of > privacy. Sell the sizzle, not the steak! Privacy > is the steak. The sizzle is the possibility of > GETTING AWAY WITH SOMETHING. "Getting away" with privacy is an oxymoron in itself. Privacy should be something that we all have and enjoy as individuals, not simply as guaranteed under the Constitution, but as a human right that is owed each of us globally. I'll stand by you in a fight for privacy, but I won't be party to anarchic idealisms that I believe will do more damage to the privacy cause in the long run.

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nada
by nobody＠alumni.cco.caltech.edu 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

Some comments on the relationship between anarchy and privacy: 1. There have been some recent posts suggesting that privacy is not fundamentally subversive of government, and that cypherpunks should emphasize the privacy and keep quite about the anarchy. I find these arguments disingenuous in the extreme, and strategically unsound as well. 2. Cypherpunks believe that privacy is fundamentally subversive. Come on, folks, whom do you want privacy FROM, if not your own government? Otherwise there's no logical objection to the key-escrow, trust-big-brother schemes. 3. The government has shown by its behavior that it believes that privacy is fundamentally subversive. 4. I personally find privacy, in itself, only mildly interesting. As a tool to undermine the government, I find it VERY EXCITING INDEED. 5. Cypherpunks' mission is to evangelize the use of privacy. Sell the sizzle, not the steak! Privacy is the steak. The sizzle is the possibility of GETTING AWAY WITH SOMETHING.

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Re: nada against the gubbamess...
by doug＠netcom4.netcom.com 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

loki(a)convex1.TCS.Tulane.EDU (the mischeivious god) said: >nobody(a)alumni.cco.caltech.edu (I think) said: >> 1. There have been some recent posts suggesting that >> privacy is not fundamentally subversive of >> government, and that cypherpunks should emphasize >> the privacy and keep quite about the anarchy. I >> find these arguments disingenuous in the extreme, >> and strategically unsound as well. > >no doubt....I have a question for everyone though. How does anarchy >deal with justice and who would be the ones to provide this service. That's one of the problems with absolute anarchy; it's unstable. Most "anarchists" believe in relative anarchy rather than absolute; some would call that simply "libertarian", but others dislike that label because a lot of libertarians are less extreme in their views. Regardless of fine distinctions in labelling, it is possible to come up with schemes for things like justice that do not involve centralized monolithic government, anyway. As I recall, Ursula LeGuin had justice provided by ad hoc peer review committees, for instance. Snow Crash had it provided by franchised companies that were called "governments", but that sure didn't resemble today's governments in most details. One scheme for future cyberspace would involve digital voting by established reputable personas (anonymous or not) and enforcement via stakes involving digital cash and/or digital reputation. Although building and establishing reputation would require some kind of investment of time and energy, it's difficult to maintain a "one physical body one vote" scheme. Randomized selection of juries might assist in that in a statistical sense. (I arrived late at the cypherpunk meeting Saturday, but from the printed agenda it looks like some aspects of that had been discussed?) As for the original point about whether cypherpunks should be quiet about anarchy or not, this is a question of PR and of politics (of course). If you're talking to a person with libertarian or anarchist leanings, then that would be a selling point. If you're talking to the press, who will in turn be talking to everyone including Peoria, the game is to be more moderate while still offering the sizzle. For instance, even mainstream Republicans and Democrats from the bible belt may distrust the IRS and the CIA enough to want some protection from *them*. But they may not sympathize with people who say that we need protection from the government overall. It's a selling game. It's also worth keeping in mind that there are a variety of political views among cypherpunks, and it would be dishonest to paint all cypherpunks as being in absolute agreement about all aspects of politics. >Also is society outside of our Ivory tower cases with twin cooling fans ready >for an anarchical harmony??? Not a chance. But the sizzle might sell anyway, if it's packaged right. Doug -- Doug Merritt doug(a)netcom.com Professional Wild-eyed Visionary Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow Unicode Novis Cypherpunks Gutenberg Wavelets Conlang Logli Alife HC_III Computational linguistics Fundamental physics Cogsci SF GA VR CASE TLAs

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is the list still going?
by jdblair＠nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

I haven't gotten a mailing for quite a few days. Is something wrong? -john

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EC isn't great for privacy either...
by remail＠tamsun.tamu.edu 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

> Wow! And "Gulp." I may have to get my European Community passport > sooner than I had planned. Does Martinique have a Net connection? Don't rush out to get your EC passport yet. Below I have included some exerpts from the EC Information Technology Security Document (ITSEC, aka Green Book). The referenced sections are from the "Confidentiality" section. I have put "..."'s where I have skipped over material and all upper case words are emphasis that I have added. For those who don't want to read it all, the gist of it is that the EC folks are also interested in maintaining the government's ability to intercept private communications. There is also talk about licensing businesses to use good confidentiality services. Btw. There is also a mention of PGP which I have left. Its the paragraph right before the one that mentions Clipper! --Begin Enclosure \subsection{Privacy enhancement issues} \subsubsection{Perception of requirements for privacy enhancement} \SeiLa{Issue} Confidentiality is, at times, essential for the good functioning of administrations, business and human relations. ... Most business and private users of communication systems are aware of the conflict between their confidentiality requirements and national security issues which require the possibility to intercept the communication in a way regulated by national laws. They accept the national authorities ability for this interception provided there are adequate safeguards to prevent unauthorised interception even by government employees. ... {\bf Service provision} The extent to which confidentiality services are provided for a specific business or citizen could depend on a system of LICENSES or certificates. A particular business might qualify for a CONFIDENTIALITY LICENSE depending on its internal procedures and activities. A general (minimum) level of confidentiality could be provided to all users. It should be possible for certain user groups or businesses to use other confidential services (egproprietary) than the standard ones provided. There are strong indications of emerging ``bottom up'' solutions for these needs (eg the Pretty Good Privacy offering on Internet, beginning 1993). Other initiatives (eg the announcement of the ``Clipper Chip'', 16 April 1993) illustrate the growing awareness of governments of the needs of their citizens for confidentiality services. ... If a public confidentiality scheme is offered, organised crime could also subscribe to such a scheme, but as it would include provisions for legal intercept, it would hardly be attractive. One would expect that such users would continue to find their own solutions as will the classified domain. An open and public service offering a credible level of confidentiality would therefore provide for the honest user, while not worsening the situation with respect to public order or national security. The combination of international communication and national security regulations require a common framework for confidentiality services, which on the one hand interoperate within all Community Member States as well as with countries outside the Community which themselves may establish their confidentiality services. This requires either an overlay approach or gateways which link the different national or regional services. These gateways are only required where multinational agreements for co-operation on national security concerns is not yet established. In this case these gateways may provide at least an interim solution. --End Enclosure

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PGPcompose (pgpc) 2.0 *just* finished.
by nate＠VIS.ColoState.EDU 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- PGPcompose 2.0 is available for ftp from 129.82.156.104 (the macintosh in my dorm room... ;-) in /pub/pgpc it's all of 11K, so don't sweat the bandwidth! PGPcompose 2.0 has the following features: -can send mail through anon.penet.fi -keeps your anon.penet.fi password in a PGP'd file in your home directory -mails through 15 of the cypherpunks remailers (unlimited remailings, actually, but there's only 15 servers in it now (tell me of more!)) -can encrypt and sign mail -pumps output directly to sendmail (once you find out where sendmail is... read the README for more info) -will keep you fron doing stupid things, like mailing though anon.penet.fi and then through the remailers, or signing a message and then sending it through the remailers or through anon.penet.fi, etc... If you use it, send me some email. I would like to expand it's abilities, but I'm lazy... and tired. - -nate nate(a)vis.colostate.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQCVAgUBLJLs4NTgi1fmrpxlAQEm+wP5AXyo6iBre/iffpMoDrwGLHbLgqwqeCUa Dn1bI3AeYqj6kwyI7BdkZ4JFTgU6o6mPldDHHwtO1VNi+P/Hnkku+H+xa9YhmxDN b5MouM7By7mEEpgWJS9Bu2+aYXdKa9ZxB6YuI4khBxSJID07mPUer2g35swiRayw y+A2KB537/o= =HhPi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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warez
by Timothy Newsham 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

> > Some recent "warez" posts from alt.security.... Why was this posted to the cypherpunks list? What is the point? [..post deleted..]

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Re: EC isn't great for privacy either...
by George A. Gleason 12 Sep '93

12 Sep '93

Right, "most people accept" the need for Big Brother to snoop..... In the UK, during the 1970s, the govt routinely tapped the phones of labor union organisers and members of opposing political parties. This got out in a series of articles in _New Statesman_. Presumably it was easy for dissident telephone engineers to detect evidence of the taps, because the exchanges were electromechanical in those days & taps were hard-wired. Nowadays, it's all System X or other digital, no evidence to detect, no dissident engineers popping out of the woodwork.... There are plenty of other examples of politically-motivated tapping; opposition political parties ought to be making much hay over this right now. During Nazi occupation, Dutch telephone engineers were particularly adept at creating non-tappable direct-dial long distance routes for special use by the resistance. After the war was over, they unveiled it for public use as direct distance dialing. Anyway, if any of these veterans are around, they would probably have interesting things to say about the current issues... -gg

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