Re: Return of the death of cypherpunks.
From: James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Oct 28, 2005 12:09 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Return of the death of cypherpunks. From: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] .. The list needs not to stay dead, with some finite effort on our part (all of us) we can well resurrect it. If there's a real content there's even no need from all those forwards, to just fake a heartbeat. Since cryptography these days is routine and uncontroversial, there is no longer any strong reason for the cypherpunks list to continue to exist. Well, political controversy seems like the least interesting thing about the list--to the extent we're all babbling about who needs killing and who's not a sufficiently pure libertarian/anarchocapitalist and which companies are selling out to the Man, the list is nothing special. The cool thing is the understanding of crypto and computer security techology as applied to these concerns that are political. And the coolest thing is getting smart people who do real crypto/security work, and write working code, to solve problems. The ratio of political wanking to technical posts and of talkers to thinkers to coders needs to be right for the list to be interesting. .. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG AnKV4N6f9DgtOy+KkQ9QsiXcpQm+moX4U09FjLXP 4zfMeSzzCXNSr737bvqJ6ccbvDSu8fr66LbLEHedb --John Kelsey
RE: Return of the death of cypherpunks.
I don't agree. One thing we do know is that, although Crypto is available and, in special contexts, used, it's use in other contexts is almost counterproduct, sending up a red flag so that those that Protect Our Freedoms will come sniffing around and bring to bear their full arsenal of technologies and, possibly, dirty tricks. Merely knowing that you are using stego/crypto in such contexts can cause a lot of attention come your way, possibly in actual meatspace, which in many cases is almost worse than not using crypto at all In addition, although strong and unbreakable Crypto exists, one thing a stint on Cypherpunks teaches you is that it is only rarely implemented in such a way as to actually be unbreakable to a determined attacker, particularly if there are not many such cases to examine in such contexts. The clear moral of this story is that, to increase the odds of truly secure communication, etc, Crypto in such contexts must become much more ubiquitous, and I still think Cypherpunks has a role to play there and indeed has played that role. Such a role is, of course, far more than a mere cheerleading role,a fact that merits a continued existence for Cypherpunks in some form or another. -TD Only when Crypto is used ubiquitousl From: James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Return of the death of cypherpunks. Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 12:09:36 -0700 -- From: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] While I don't exactly know why the list died, I suspect it was the fact that most list nodes offered a feed full of spam, dropped dead quite frequently, and also overusing that needs killing thing (okay, it was funny for a while). The list needs not to stay dead, with some finite effort on our part (all of us) we can well resurrect it. If there's a real content there's even no need from all those forwards, to just fake a heartbeat. Since cryptography these days is routine and uncontroversial, there is no longer any strong reason for the cypherpunks list to continue to exist. I recently read up on the Kerberos protocol, and thought, how primitive. Back in the bad old days, we did everything wrong, because we did not know any better. And of course, https sucks mightily because the threat model is both inappropriate to the real threats, and fails to correspond to the users mental model, or to routine practices on a wide variety of sites, hence users glibly click through all warning dialogs, most of which are mere noise anyway. These problems, however, are no explicitly political, and tend to be addressed on lists that are not explicitly political, leaving cypherpunks with little of substance. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG AnKV4N6f9DgtOy+KkQ9QsiXcpQm+moX4U09FjLXP 4zfMeSzzCXNSr737bvqJ6ccbvDSu8fr66LbLEHedb
Re: Return of the death of cypherpunks.
-- James A. Donald: Since cryptography these days is routine and uncontroversial, there is no longer any strong reason for the cypherpunks list to continue to exist. John Kelsey The ratio of political wanking to technical posts and of talkers to thinkers to coders needs to be right for the list to be interesting. These days, if one is seriously working on overthrowing the state by advancing to crypto anarchy (meaning both anarchy that is hidden, in that large scale cooperation procedes without the state taxing it, regulating it, supervising it, and licensing it, and anarchy that relies on cryptography to resist the state) it is not necessary or advisable to announce what one is up to. For example, Kerberos needs to be replaced by a more secure protocol. No need to add And I am concerned about this because I am an anarchist And so one discusses it on another list. (Kerberos tickets are small meaningful encrypted packets of information, when they should be random numbers. Being small, they can be dictionary attacked.) --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Y068Cy3Zv9GExXRbP24QJP5WmHGLz5VKyqNYFKbx 45fkOIGeiTkFnaM7p/URjB/kgn+0mcg8fMsMLmDy7
Re: Return of the death of cypherpunks.
From: James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Oct 28, 2005 12:09 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Return of the death of cypherpunks. From: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... The list needs not to stay dead, with some finite effort on our part (all of us) we can well resurrect it. If there's a real content there's even no need from all those forwards, to just fake a heartbeat. Since cryptography these days is routine and uncontroversial, there is no longer any strong reason for the cypherpunks list to continue to exist. Well, political controversy seems like the least interesting thing about the list--to the extent we're all babbling about who needs killing and who's not a sufficiently pure libertarian/anarchocapitalist and which companies are selling out to the Man, the list is nothing special. The cool thing is the understanding of crypto and computer security techology as applied to these concerns that are political. And the coolest thing is getting smart people who do real crypto/security work, and write working code, to solve problems. The ratio of political wanking to technical posts and of talkers to thinkers to coders needs to be right for the list to be interesting. ... --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG AnKV4N6f9DgtOy+KkQ9QsiXcpQm+moX4U09FjLXP 4zfMeSzzCXNSr737bvqJ6ccbvDSu8fr66LbLEHedb --John Kelsey
Re: Return of the death of cypherpunks.
-- James A. Donald: Since cryptography these days is routine and uncontroversial, there is no longer any strong reason for the cypherpunks list to continue to exist. John Kelsey The ratio of political wanking to technical posts and of talkers to thinkers to coders needs to be right for the list to be interesting. These days, if one is seriously working on overthrowing the state by advancing to crypto anarchy (meaning both anarchy that is hidden, in that large scale cooperation procedes without the state taxing it, regulating it, supervising it, and licensing it, and anarchy that relies on cryptography to resist the state) it is not necessary or advisable to announce what one is up to. For example, Kerberos needs to be replaced by a more secure protocol. No need to add And I am concerned about this because I am an anarchist And so one discusses it on another list. (Kerberos tickets are small meaningful encrypted packets of information, when they should be random numbers. Being small, they can be dictionary attacked.) --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Y068Cy3Zv9GExXRbP24QJP5WmHGLz5VKyqNYFKbx 45fkOIGeiTkFnaM7p/URjB/kgn+0mcg8fMsMLmDy7
Return of the death of cypherpunks.
-- From: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] While I don't exactly know why the list died, I suspect it was the fact that most list nodes offered a feed full of spam, dropped dead quite frequently, and also overusing that needs killing thing (okay, it was funny for a while). The list needs not to stay dead, with some finite effort on our part (all of us) we can well resurrect it. If there's a real content there's even no need from all those forwards, to just fake a heartbeat. Since cryptography these days is routine and uncontroversial, there is no longer any strong reason for the cypherpunks list to continue to exist. I recently read up on the Kerberos protocol, and thought, how primitive. Back in the bad old days, we did everything wrong, because we did not know any better. And of course, https sucks mightily because the threat model is both inappropriate to the real threats, and fails to correspond to the users mental model, or to routine practices on a wide variety of sites, hence users glibly click through all warning dialogs, most of which are mere noise anyway. These problems, however, are no explicitly political, and tend to be addressed on lists that are not explicitly political, leaving cypherpunks with little of substance. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG AnKV4N6f9DgtOy+KkQ9QsiXcpQm+moX4U09FjLXP 4zfMeSzzCXNSr737bvqJ6ccbvDSu8fr66LbLEHedb
RE: Return of the death of cypherpunks.
I don't agree. One thing we do know is that, although Crypto is available and, in special contexts, used, it's use in other contexts is almost counterproduct, sending up a red flag so that those that Protect Our Freedoms will come sniffing around and bring to bear their full arsenal of technologies and, possibly, dirty tricks. Merely knowing that you are using stego/crypto in such contexts can cause a lot of attention come your way, possibly in actual meatspace, which in many cases is almost worse than not using crypto at all In addition, although strong and unbreakable Crypto exists, one thing a stint on Cypherpunks teaches you is that it is only rarely implemented in such a way as to actually be unbreakable to a determined attacker, particularly if there are not many such cases to examine in such contexts. The clear moral of this story is that, to increase the odds of truly secure communication, etc, Crypto in such contexts must become much more ubiquitous, and I still think Cypherpunks has a role to play there and indeed has played that role. Such a role is, of course, far more than a mere cheerleading role,a fact that merits a continued existence for Cypherpunks in some form or another. -TD Only when Crypto is used ubiquitousl From: James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Return of the death of cypherpunks. Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 12:09:36 -0700 -- From: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] While I don't exactly know why the list died, I suspect it was the fact that most list nodes offered a feed full of spam, dropped dead quite frequently, and also overusing that needs killing thing (okay, it was funny for a while). The list needs not to stay dead, with some finite effort on our part (all of us) we can well resurrect it. If there's a real content there's even no need from all those forwards, to just fake a heartbeat. Since cryptography these days is routine and uncontroversial, there is no longer any strong reason for the cypherpunks list to continue to exist. I recently read up on the Kerberos protocol, and thought, how primitive. Back in the bad old days, we did everything wrong, because we did not know any better. And of course, https sucks mightily because the threat model is both inappropriate to the real threats, and fails to correspond to the users mental model, or to routine practices on a wide variety of sites, hence users glibly click through all warning dialogs, most of which are mere noise anyway. These problems, however, are no explicitly political, and tend to be addressed on lists that are not explicitly political, leaving cypherpunks with little of substance. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG AnKV4N6f9DgtOy+KkQ9QsiXcpQm+moX4U09FjLXP 4zfMeSzzCXNSr737bvqJ6ccbvDSu8fr66LbLEHedb
Return of the death of cypherpunks.
-- From: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] While I don't exactly know why the list died, I suspect it was the fact that most list nodes offered a feed full of spam, dropped dead quite frequently, and also overusing that needs killing thing (okay, it was funny for a while). The list needs not to stay dead, with some finite effort on our part (all of us) we can well resurrect it. If there's a real content there's even no need from all those forwards, to just fake a heartbeat. Since cryptography these days is routine and uncontroversial, there is no longer any strong reason for the cypherpunks list to continue to exist. I recently read up on the Kerberos protocol, and thought, how primitive. Back in the bad old days, we did everything wrong, because we did not know any better. And of course, https sucks mightily because the threat model is both inappropriate to the real threats, and fails to correspond to the users mental model, or to routine practices on a wide variety of sites, hence users glibly click through all warning dialogs, most of which are mere noise anyway. These problems, however, are no explicitly political, and tend to be addressed on lists that are not explicitly political, leaving cypherpunks with little of substance. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG AnKV4N6f9DgtOy+KkQ9QsiXcpQm+moX4U09FjLXP 4zfMeSzzCXNSr737bvqJ6ccbvDSu8fr66LbLEHedb
Re: Return of the death of cypherpunks.
James overlooks the agricultural virtue of cypherpunks death and rebirth for the natural cycle gets rid of old growth and allows for a new improved version. No doubt the old crop doesn't get much satisfaction being taken for manure, nor do the new sprouts see any reason to hail the shit doing what it's supposed to do. Cypherpunks surely will not vaunt tradition when innovation starts to peter out. True, declaring the war is won and going over to war-storying is a grand tradition of bullshitting.
Return of the death of cypherpunks.
-- When a mailing list is full of crap, it dies, even though the regulars set killfiles to silence the offending posters. The reason is, no new people arrive. New people subscribe, see nothing but crap, unsubscribe. A mailing list or newsgroup needs a strong personality who is a prolific poster who keeps discussions on track, issues lots of good stuff, and reprimands trolls and nuts. That person, of course was Tim May. (past tense) It also needs a continual stream of new people, who bring new ideas, and unfamiliar ways of recognizing old ideas. The relentless mass spamming by professor rat and Jim Choate keeps new comers away, since 99% of the posts to the list is from people who hate the ideas that the list was created to further, and seek to shut it down, to prevent thought about and discussion of such ideas, and Tim May has succumbed to terminal grumps on discovering that the crypto transcendence is not coming soon. So when is the crypto trancendence coming? When does an encryption enabled internet start to undermine the power of the state? Well it is a little like web groceries. During the Dot.com hype, lots of web grocery companies popped up, and made about a cent on the dollar. They vanished, but, surprise surprise, there are now some real web grocery firms, and they are making a little bit of money. Darknet (frost over freenet) is going tolerably well, mostly in its Japanese incarnation, the repression being stronger in Japan. The Japanese experience tells us that any repression short of communist levels of repression will make darknet stronger, not weaker. The big threat to frost over freenet is the natifying of the net which makes more and more people into clients, not peers. Theoretically frost over freenet serves even those behind NATs, but really it does not, and cannot. Private money on the internet remains a small, non anonymous, backwater. There is no Chaumian anonymity. There is some trust us anonymity, located on offshore islands, controlled by people quite susceptible to US pressure. Account based money without true names or the mark of the beast is a tiny but profitable business. E-gold is probably the largest player, with about two million dollars a day changing hands, and twenty thousand micropayments a day (payments of less than a dollar) Two million a day is one five hundred thousandth of the turnover on the US$, and it is not growing very fast. Of course e-gold is just one of several, but it probably a large portion of the total. Suppose no-true-name account based money grows at thirty percent a year, which seems plausible. In due course some substantial portion of it will be chaumian. Then the US$ goes into crisis in 2060. As Adam Smith put it, There is a lot of ruin in a nation.. Even if we suppose that the institutions of the crypto trancendence undergo remarkably rapid growth, the kind of growth that the dot bombs predicted in their business plans, the crypto trancendence does not hit until around 2025. But right now today, the internet is undermining the power of the state. The Japanese government went as far as democracy can go, and perhaps a bit further, to shut down file sharing. The result: Widespread adoption of software based on freenet. Cypherpunks 1, state 0. We have a long way to go, but we are going. Oh yeah, and once again I declare the mailing list that gave the name of this movement to be dead, though the fact that I am still posting on it would seem to prove it is alive, though breathing its last. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG dcuOonOpNgPgqZpgbJF0j6ClGa0j1it1Uk51kc/Q 4Nnby2D6L0GGqj2rwXsyWpY1xoKh901QBG9bsYjxG
Re: Return of the death of cypherpunks.
James overlooks the agricultural virtue of cypherpunks death and rebirth for the natural cycle gets rid of old growth and allows for a new improved version. No doubt the old crop doesn't get much satisfaction being taken for manure, nor do the new sprouts see any reason to hail the shit doing what it's supposed to do. Cypherpunks surely will not vaunt tradition when innovation starts to peter out. True, declaring the war is won and going over to war-storying is a grand tradition of bullshitting.
