- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

An Appeal to Calm
by tcmay＠netcom.com 13 Mar '93

13 Mar '93

Folks, Tempers have flared. Angry words have been sent out to the list. We've all been mail-bombed by an angry member of the list (who wants off--NOW!). I guess this is our first real flame war--now we're a real mailing list! But let's not let the current controversy confuse our very real mission, nor hide the progress we've seen so far (remailers, spread of PGP, experiments with digital cash, etc.). If we let the list self-destruct through a few unfortunate incidents, all hope is lost. * The "unsubscribe" problem will hopefully soon be fixed. Maybe an automatic handler (like "majordomo," someone suggested) can be installed. * Mailing lists like this one characteristically have wildy fluctuating traffic levels. No messages for a couple of days (leading to "Is the list broken?" queries) and then 50 messages in a single day (leading to "Enough already! I can't take the volume." messages). Remember, it is the list membership that is generating the volume, not the list management (such as it is). * Some have said the "cypherpricks" list is generating all noise and no signal. Many of us would disagree. Actual code is being written, deployed, and experimented with. One bunch is helping with PGP, another is writing and deploying remailer programs, another is pursuing steganography (hiding messages). Pretty impressive. Especially for a new mailing list. * And relatively little flaming is going on. The closest we've come to a real act of malice was the mail bombing of the list by a disgruntled member--I won't go into that further. * There are serious issues involving the uses and abuses of these various tools and capabilities. Anonymous postings carry obvious concerns. So does untraceable electronic mail, with the potential for extortion threats and even fully-secure markets for assassinations and other crimes. Some of these issues have been discussed on the list. No doubt some see these debates as "noise." Well, a mailing list cannot of course only cater to one particular set of needs. * If we don't discuss these kinds of issues on this list, who will? The FBI and NSA undoubtedly. So why not we the people? I hope things can calm down a bit. -Tim May -- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available.

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Re: Cypherpunks know they're cool
by Marc.Ringuette＠GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU 13 Mar '93

13 Mar '93

Ted Ts'o writes, > What I don't understand is, why are people complaining? We're just > seeing people exercise their sacred right to free speech..... all over > this mailing list. After all, isn't this what you were working towards? Heh. I agree with Ted. Try taking the same advice we'd give someone who received a offensive anonymous note: quit your bitching & moaning, you losers! Yeah, yeah, I know, volume attacks are of a different kind than offensive content. But my own belief is, if our software is broken, we shouldn't blame the doofus who comes along and tickles it. If we end up having a problem of volume harrassment, we should expect to have to PROTECT OURSELVES with some half decent mailing list software. For instance, something that accepts mail only from subscribers or that shunts large messages (or excessive number of messages from a single person) to the moderator for review. The fact that we have stupid software is our own fault. To me, this has the same feel to it as the current flap about anonymous newsgroup postings. The right answer, in my opinion, is to use news distribution software which can filter out anonymous postings (and, in order to enable that, and prior to the availability of "real person" cryptographic certificates, to ask that all remailers provide a special header line). What these solutions have in common is that we ask people to protect themselves, rather than requiring everyone else to adhere to their notions of good behavior. Which brings to mind the potential problem that 99% of everybody may choose to participate exclusively in "real person only" groups. Any hints at a solution to that one? How about if we try to convince people to participate in "pay as you go" groups using digital postage? That would solve many of the problems, in a way that is less offensive to the freedom-loving among us. -- Marc Ringuette (mnr(a)cs.cmu.edu)

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Re: UNSUBSCRIBE ME!!!!!
by pmetzger＠snark.shearson.com 12 Mar '93

12 Mar '93

> From: mbrennan(a)netcom.com (Michael Brennan) > > > > > >DAMN!!!!! UNSUBSCRIBE ME ALREADY!!!!! > > >GHABRECH(a)ULTRIX.RAMAPO.EDU > > >ghabrech(a)ultrix.ramapo.edu > > > > You know, if you went down to the local expressway and lay down along one > > of the broken white lines and worked on perfecting your impression of a > > median strip, your problems would soon stop bothering you. > > > > -- > > Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) > > Please explain to me, lefty, why you insist on flaming someone who simply > wants to unsubscribe from the list. Because, you pathetic asshole, he didn't just want to subscribe to the list; he sent out a goddamn 80k garbage message to everyone. That you cannot see the difference between these two demonstrates a substantial deficit in your capacity for mentation. Perry

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Re: CYPHERPUNKS=EMAIL HARASSEMENT?
by pmetzger＠snark.shearson.com 12 Mar '93

12 Mar '93

> From: mbrennan(a)netcom.com (Michael Brennan) > > You are very wrong! As a matter of fact, I have sent unsubscribe requests > to cypherpunks-request and those requests have been ignored! That's why I > sent this last message of mine to the whole list. I'd be willing to bet > that the individual who sent the 3K file had also attempted initially to > send his request to cypherpunks-request and had his request ignored. In > fact, it's quite possible that MANY of the people who have sent their > "unsubscribe" requests to the whole list have done so because initial > requests sent to cypherpunks-request were ignored! > > Brushing this matter aside as a non-issue and pretending there is no > problem will not make the problem go away! UNSUBSCRIBE REQUESTS SENT TO > CYPHERPUNKS-REQUEST ARE BEING IGNORED!!! You are a whining child, Mr. Brennan. How long have these messages been ignored? Months? Years? I suspect a matter of days. Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you aren't paying anyone to maintain this list, and people don't do it full time. Its not a job. Prehaps the moderator went on vacation. Prehaps he has no time for a week. Have you actually waited a reasonable amount of time, which I would define as no less than a week and likely no less than two? I've run mailing lists. Its lots of long and hard work, and sometimes you go on vacation, and when you do lots of whining fools start getting pissed off that you aren't a robot that provides them with instant gratification. Sorry, but no one owes you instant service. You didn't pay for a subscription you know. This is a volunteer effort, and that means that you accept whenever you sign on to any mailing list the possibility that, horror of horrors, people might not process your requests every fifteen minutes. It would not be anything like a big deal to delete the mail for a few more days. Instead, you involve all of us in something that we cannot change. What makes you think that if the moderator is not reading the -request alias that he will read the list itself? In conclusion, get a grip. When the guy behind the counter at the 7-11 is a little slow, do you just take the food you bought without paying? No? Then what in hell are you doing posting obnoxious mail to hundreds of people when you know very well it violates all network custom? Perry Metzger

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Re: Unacceptable slander by dclunie [FLAME]
by bill＠anubis.network.com 12 Mar '93

12 Mar '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- [ a bunch of bickering deleted concerning who was wrong to have lost their temper first. ] Folks, this is the cypherpunks list. I have three observations to make. 1. Joining it is voluntary. 2. It generates a tremendous amount of traffic. 3. Many people on it can write filters and such. It's a technical list. Why do I mention three obvious points? Here's my personal situation. I suspect it is similar to many here. I read many mail lists. The traffic on them is large, and the unsubscribe messages are numerous. Being a pro-code kind of person, rather than complain frequently about people being stupid with unsubscribe requests, I filtered 'em. So, I've never seen the unsubscribe requests. Anything with unsubscribe in the subject gets filtered. I've never seen any of you complain about a problem with the list. Suddenly, some genius craps in my mail file. My problem was with said genius, so I replied to him. End of problem, right? Wrong. Someone with a chip on his shoulder makes a federal case about it and starts name calling. It's really ironic that Tim May gets blasted as a petty vandal for mailing George back a third of George's post. I'm not in any position to be able to help with a problem with the subscription list. When it comes down to a choice between writing a quick filter to make sure I don't see mail that irritates me or complaining, I write a filter. When it comes down to passively accepting "punishment" from someone who voluntarily joined the list, wants to quit the list due to traffic, and then hypocritically worsens the situation by doubling the traffic for a day singlehandedly, I refuse. If this list was for beginning computer users and children, I'd be much more patient. I didn't want George's mail, so I gave it back to him. - -- Bill O'Hanlon Network Systems Corporation bill(a)network.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBK6EZ+uUL0gzXlqP9AQGZYAP9G9f/WukRsNPZG4F5MrlVB+gUINW0L2pJ qbYgvbIOReNXckNrDtm/soToE+tMVcRbj3r0fv3VW14fveQssIJE02fpiTxJ/LAZ +pIuOEzYV/tUubm5F5ZeunAt5tnsfCofvqisWVan4tJr8mpL4sx+0z9dTM6xsZcb mLSkZPrDImk= =hpCC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Returned mail: User unknown
by lefty＠apple.com 12 Mar '93

12 Mar '93

Apparently, Mr. Habrecht's problems have been solved. > ----- Transcript of session follows ----- >>>> RCPT To:<ghabrech(a)ultrix.ramapo.edu> ><<< 550 <ghabrech(a)ultrix.ramapo.edu>... Addressee unknown >550 <ghabrech(a)ultrix.ramapo.edu>... User unknown -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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MISC: steganography & pics
by Karl Barrus 12 Mar '93

12 Mar '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Cypherpunks, I too have played around with graphics formats, specifically the TIFF format. It's a large and complicated format, but it does leave room for customization. I just mention this because I'm more familiar with TIFF than the GIF format. Skipping over 99% of the details: the TIFF format has a header (magic numbers and stuff), tags and corresponding information fields, and picture data - real terminology exists, like image file directories and so forth, but I'll skip that. The TIFF format allows you to specify quite a bit of info: information fields such as time of creation, author name, comments, host system; picture information such as rows, columns, whether the minimum value corresponds to black or white; color models: RGB, CMY, CMYK, greyscale; compression model: none, LZW, JPEG; alpha values, and many other fields. Finally, the picture data is stored, non-sequentially if desired (that is, row 1, then row 137, the row 54, etc.) TIFF is extendible by simply defining new tags. Because the TIFF format is so all encompassing, few software packages can read and write the entire thing - that is, valid TIFFs may be created that may not be recognized by other software. Sam Lieffler (sp?) at sgi has written a comprehensive TIFF manipulation package available via anonymous ftp which helps to overcome this problem. Anyway, for steganography purposes, we wouldn't want to define a "crypto" tag obviously! Maybe we could adapt one of the other fields, like host computer or whatever, so that the signal that a TIFFs contains hidden information is that one of the fields has a certain value, to be arranged in advance or whatever. A 256x256 image contains 65536 pixels, each of which could contribute 1 bit to a message, which comes to 8192 bytes (say each pixel is 8 bit and not 24 or something fancy like that), more than enough for a message. This sounds like fun - I imagine in a few weeks there will be a message to the list to retrieve the recently posted image from alt.binaries.pictures.misc and read the hidden message! /-----------------------------------\ | Karl L. Barrus | | elee9sf(a)menudo.uh.edu | <- preferred address | barrus(a)tree.egr.uh.edu (NeXTMail) | \-----------------------------------/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBK6DvpoOA7OpLWtYzAQG1PgP/bI+s4p6kcMkHcv2iR+iJJV9TK32zicos fNOqufuPZvWepfxbEqhsY70RBQAZjuqEhKcjP54yFr7wuDbroFhbfIBMQQLn1znj v5dcaM7GrykNMhR9andfskRG6k72dxlmyBhQRcR3pbhwpPZLdw141yS4VPzHnez7 VgQ9Z+Gsb9s= =qGIH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[FLAME] (Was Re: UNSUBSCRIBE ME!!!!!)
by lefty＠apple.com 12 Mar '93

12 Mar '93

>Please explain to me, lefty, why you insist on flaming someone who simply >wants to unsubscribe from the list. Mr. Brennan, I wouldn't ever flame anyone who simply wanted to unsubscribe from this list. I _would_, however, certainly flame a fool with a room-temperature IQ who feels that the best way of dealing with his _own_ _personal_ problem unsubscribing from the list is to send 80,000 bytes of garbage to over two hundred people who couldn't do anything about his problem even if they wanted to. People who may, in fact, be paying good money to receive electronic mail and who didn't have any particular need for 3,600 copies of the words "Unsubscribe me!!!!" >This is truly beyond comprehension. Given the apparent level of your comprehension, I'm not in the least surprised. I imagine this sort of thing must happen to you frequently, say, whenever you're faced with a situation more complicated that deciding whether you want fries with your Big Mac. >I had thought for a moment that the cypherpunks were rising above petty, >>arrogant slanders, but evidently I was wrong. I suggest you look up the word "slander" in the dictionary. Get one of the big kids to help you with it, if necessary, and if you can find one who won't beat you up on sight. It doesn't mean what you apparently believe it does. >Clearly uri and lefty wish to drag this whole affair down to new depths. And >why? Just to prove to everyone that you can insert your head up your ass >>further than anyone can imagine? > >You are truly pathetic. Gosh, Mr. Brennan, those are pretty strong words for a fellow who cries "slander" at the apparent drop of a hat. If you keep this sort of thing up, you're liable to convince me that you're not only an idiot but a hypocrite as well. Somebody's got his head up his ass here, but I suspect it's not me, Chucko. -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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No Subject
by bmullane＠ultrix.ramapo.edu 12 Mar '93

12 Mar '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 12:56:02 -0500 From: uri(a)watson.ibm.com #FLAME ON [ Rest of flame deleted.] What I don't understand is, why are people complaining? We're just seeing people exercise their sacred right to free speech..... all over this mailing list. After all, isn't this what you were working towards? So now that this group is getting a taste of free speech, why do we see people sending mail to system administrators, asking that certain people be censured for sending messages to this mailing list? Not too long ago, people were saying that censuring people for their speech, even after the fact, was tantamount to censorship! It seems just a little hypocritical to me, given the strong and sprited defense of anonymous remailers just a week or two ago..... - Ted Ted, don't you realize that people only believe in things as long as it is convinient(sp) or nonoffensive to them? Maybe the admins will yell at me for being on this list now that they got mail from the net.nazis concerning ghabrech's action. maybe they will find out what the file pgp is in my acct and force me to delete it... later, Brian -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBK6DittvH71LYWYb3AQHzYAQAgzC5znnv0gsOO+NiUDN+hwHOVYOdvwhc 0yTkigSx/FaS1YuHy2Wntlh0NbLJ59n6ZyyVOHhiE0cWwksXsQ4jwfU0KulUa5cF nR06UDLqrhFtkRS2HcA99vPbXlbGFeVCV+02pVbc1NDSmvMTMpAvFrwlRQuQEfBW WFZrOl1NCfU= =2yTO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: UNSUBSCRIBE ME!!!!!
by lefty＠apple.com 12 Mar '93

12 Mar '93

>DAMN!!!!! UNSUBSCRIBE ME ALREADY!!!!! >GHABRECH(a)ULTRIX.RAMAPO.EDU >ghabrech(a)ultrix.ramapo.edu You know, if you went down to the local expressway and lay down along one of the broken white lines and worked on perfecting your impression of a median strip, your problems would soon stop bothering you. -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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