- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

Re: news.admin.policy: A Report From the Front
by jordan＠imsi.com 17 Mar '93

17 Mar '93

>>> Who here has been in such a news war ... I was involved in a slightly different news war a few years ago. I was being harrassed by a particularly prolific news poster (at one point he represented nearly 9% of the total USENET weekly volume), and it turned out that I was running a site that had an NNTP feed to his site. I talked with the admin there, found out their fan-out plan, and made sure that anything I got from them got fanned out as soon as possible. Except I would modify the message in subtle ways, like change the attribution line from something like From: john(a)somesite.net (John Q. Public) to From: john(a)somesite.net (Wimpy Math Grad Student) Anyway, I was able to make my version of his postings "the" version by hitting all the other sites his site fanned out to first. It was fun for a while until he found out and tried to mail bomb me. Fortunately, I was around when it started, and put a reflector in to send his bombs back automatically piece by piece. His machine was a lowly VAX 750 running some backwater rev of 4.3 alpha-alpha, and sendmail promptly sent the load to 40 and crashed the machine. His PhD advisor was not amused. /jordan

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news.admin.policy: A Report From the Front
by an5877＠anon.penet.fi 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The good guys are beginning to prevail in the news.admin.policy battle over pseudonymous postings, aided in no small part by the opposition, one of whom began unilaterally cancelling articles by nyms. This tactical blunder produced a firestorm of protest and brought in fresh voices eager to speak out on the side of privacy and freedom of expression. We need to continue to weigh in on the side of pseudonymous postings. Perhaps the most constructive approach is to do so pseudonymously! DEADBEAT -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQBFAgUBK6X6HPFZTpBW/B35AQFOJgF9Fk/bNUE1cgl2vKJgFJCWg+1KDIqyeVtS ferduPOhXxNrdwyHWvx4vm+vIWKvdVEO =QHmk -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind system, any replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi. *IMPORTANT server security update*, mail to update(a)anon.penet.fi for details.

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the recent mailing list flames
by hughes 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

A word from your list maintainer. Some people have no patience. I was at CFP for three days last week, soda has crashed twice (and is still down as of this writing), I've had house guests. I just this morning finished all the pending list requests. (All the deletions I did yesterday.) One of the two loud complainers, mbrennan(a)netcom.com, had actually doubled subscribed himself to the list. I had already removed him once, so I thought; I had moved him over to the -announce list. Since we don't believe in security by obscurity here, the following will generate a mail bomb for the next time _you_ want to be an asshole: yes "UNSUBSCRIBE ME\!\!\!" | head -30000 The program 'yes' (be repetitively affirmative) goes into an infinite loop printing its argument. When the pipe buffer fills up, the kernal blocks the 'yes' process and invokes 'head', which partially empties the buffer; 'yes' refills it. This goes on until 'head' has seen enough lines and terminates and closes the pipe. Closing the pipe then causes 'yes' to terminate. So even though 'yes' is nominally an infinite loop, when bound to a pipe and to a program which accepts a bounded number of lines, it stops being an infinite loop. I consider this clever. Enjoy, but do not deploy this one. Eric

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PGP 2.2
by ORNTS188＠ksuvxb.kent.edu 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

Hello, from reading some of the postings, I gather that there is another list that deals more with just PGP. If so could someone send the address to me. Thanks..... Dan :)

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alternate US site for pgp22
by Pat Farrell 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

Hi, Can someone point me to another US FTP site with PGP22. I've downloaded it a couple of times from soda.berkeley.edu, and can't get it unzipped. I've tried all known combinarions of binary, non-binary, etc. The file, once it reaches my PC is 209409 but pkunzip 204g says it is broken. If I use pkzipfix, I can get some of the files, docs, keyserver, etc. but it always fails with a CRC error on or after exploding LANGUAGE.TXT One piece of tech info: I have to FTP to a SUN server, and then use Kermit to bring the file to my PC. This has worked many times for many other files, but there could be some user error in here. Thanks Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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volunteers and standards
by Al Whaley 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

I apologize for sending this broadly for it will not apply to most of you who work with and understand the meaning of standards... If a person sticks his/her neck out to let you volunteer for a desirable event, and you don't hold up your end of the bargain, you can expect your own treatment back in the future. Anyone wanting to receive a scholarship or volunteer for the Computers, Freedom and Privacy '94 conference should please contact George Trubow at g.trubow(a)compmail.com He'll also have a WELL account soon. I suggest that he's not facile with email yet, so you're welcome to copy me with your notes and I'll also make sure he gets them for now. Despite controversy about its cost, it will continue to cost about the same amount next year as this year, with the probable exception of adding student rates (yes, you'll have to be full time at some school/university/college). Thanks. judi -- Al Whaley al(a)sunnyside.com +1-415 322-5411(Tel), -6481 (Fax) Sunnyside Computing, Inc., PO Box 299, Palo Alto, CA 94302

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Community standards for email anonymity
by Marc.Ringuette＠GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

Good point, Ted, what we're after is some "community standards" for cyberspace, and what I'm suggesting is the fairly libertarian standard that goes like this: Prefer technological solutions and self-protection solutions over rule-making, where they are feasible. This is based on the notion that the more rules there are, the more people will call for the "net police" to enforce them. If we can encourage community standards which emphasize a prudent level of self-protection, then we'll be able to make do with fewer rules and a less intrusive level of policing. Some more specific versions of this: Self-protection Protection via rules --------------- -------------------- "Don't read the newsgroup Forbid all newsgroups which a if it offends you" reasonable person would find offensive. Allow anonymous posting Use software to Forbid all in all newsgroups; use allow anonymity in anonymous posting. information filters. some groups only. Handle volume bombs by Track down volume bombs using digital postage and and disconnect the offender. information filters. Trace harrassing notes to Tell people to just ignore or filter the source. out harrassing material. I guess it's a matter of preference. I wonder if it's asking too much to achieve general agreement among us cypherpunks? -- Marc Ringuette (mnr(a)cs.cmu.edu)

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crypto poem
by gnu＠cygnus.com 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

To: rms(a)ai.mit.edu Subject: crypto poem From: pgut1(a)cs.aukuni.ac.nz Date: Sun, 14 Mar 93 15:17:29 -0800 Subject: And now for something completely different... PGP or not PGP (from Hamlet Act III Scene I) -------------- PGP or not PGP - that is the question Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous patents, Or to take arms against a sea of lawyers, And by encrypting end them? To crypt, to sign No more; and by a program to say we end The patents and the export restrictions That RSA is heir to - 'tis a consummation. Devoutly to be wish'd. To crypt, to sign. To crypt - perchance to pem-code: aye, there's the rub! For in that test of wills what lawyers may come When we have shuffled off this PGP business, Must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of such legal restrictions. For who would bear the whips and scorns of Leavenworth Th'patent systems wrong, the export laws worse, The pangs of despis'd lawyers, the NSA's delay, The insolence of Sternlight, and the spurns That patient usage of PGP takes When he himself might his quietus make with PEM? Who would this program bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary system, But that the dread of something after PEM The undiscover'd country, from whose bourne No cryptographer returns -- puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action. - Apologies to Bill Shakespeare

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We have a verdict. (fwd)
by wixer!pacoid＠cactus.org 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

For Lists That Care About Computer Privacy: In case you didn't catch this elsewheres.. I've been covering the SJG vs. SS trial for certain magazines. Hopefully you'll be able to read soon an in-depth, first hand account of the fiasco our paid officials attempted to conduct during the SS trial. The bueno news is that individuals and small companies can actually sue the US Fed govt for privacy violations, and win. Judge Sparks didn't give a whole lot of airplay to the *damages* sustained, but this is an important step forward. The flood gates are opened.. pxn. ---- Forwarded message: > From cs.utexas.edu!tic.com!sjackson(a)cactus.org Sun Mar 14 16:25:06 1993 > Date: Sun, 14 Mar 93 15:05:19 -0600 > From: tic.com!sjackson(a)cactus.org (Steve Jackson) > Message-Id: <9303142105.AA17568(a)aahsa.tic.com> > To: ... > Subject: We have a verdict. > > We won. > > Pete Kennedy, our attorney at George, Donaldson & Ford, called me > with the news about 3:30 today. Apparently the decision came in late > Friday while Pete was at the CFP. > > The judge ruled for us on both the PPA and ECPA, though he says that > taking the computer out the door was not an "interception." (I have not > read the decision yet, so no quotes here.) > > He awarded damages of $1,000 per plaintiff under the ECPA. > > Under the PPA, he awarded SJ Games $42,259 for lost profits in 1990, and > out of pocket costs of $8,781. > > Our attorneys are also entitled to submit a request for their costs. > > No word on appeal yet. > > Look for a more complete and coherent account after we all read > the decision. > > Please copy this announcement to all electronic and other media. > > Thanks for your support through all this!

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soda.berkeley.edu
by Peter shipley 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

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