Re: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
If you're already adept with text analysis you should be able to do the complementary operation. Make a system that gathers and analyzes gigabytes of real-world text in order to normalize input text for use with a nym and broaden the correlation with public writings. As it comes more into use it will start analyzing itself with the end result that vocabulary and variety will be minimized. The joys of positive feedback. Call it baa-sheeplifier-baa.pl. It may not make reading a pleasure but it could help in the neverending fight against *evil*. Mike (Re: CDR RE: snipped from headers.) On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, Sunder wrote: Ray Dillinger wrote: On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: And your possible motive for spreading the word about his reputation, which ties you to an illicit transaction, is what exactly? Wouldn't your own reputation be blinded by a nym anyway? Give me a few dozen writing samples from each of a hundred known people, and another writing sample a hundred words long from one of them under a pseudonym, and I can tell you to a 90% probability which of the hundred known people wrote it. If some persistent pseudonym has a record with hundreds or thousands of illicit transactions, the lions are going to be crawling cyberspace for *any* writing that matches its style closely enough to have been written by the same person. They'll get a short list. Then they'll start eliminating possibilities and when they're down to three or four they'll start getting wiretap orders. With the wiretap order, they can run a sting or a man-in-the-middle attack so they've got one solid charge. That will net them an arrest warrant if it works. But whether this works or not, they can still get a search warrant after they give it a shot. If the machine is not theft-secure (and face it, almost no machines are), the arrest warrant issues anyway and the owner of the pseudonym winds up in jail. And the lions didn't have to do any particularly clever cryptanalysis to get there. All they had to do was run a spreadsheet counting grammar, word choice, sentence length, and a few other parameters until they found a match. Bear
Re: CDR: Re: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
Ray Dillinger wrote: Wouldn't your own reputation be blinded by a nym anyway? Nyms are not as hard as most of you seem to assume. Each instance of a nym's use is more data for traffic analysis, and writing styles contain "signature" usages that can identify particular writers with a high degree of probability. Ah, yes, traffic analysis, context analysis. Good stuff. There are ways around this problem. Solving the traffic analysis involves having a lot of mixmasters out there. Sad that there aren't more. If the probability is ever deemed high enough that a search warrant can issue, and your nym is involved in all kinds of illicit deals which are verifiable through the reputation system, then you have a problem because the lions are likely to come take your favorite toys away, and may even put you through a "trial" like the one that just happened to Mr. Bell. It also depends on how circumstantial versus how hard said evidence is. Sure, if you're reccomending your favorite dope dealer to someone else, it doesn't matter how they found out that you are the infamous B34r "McVeigh" Phr3@k4z01d, they can get you on a possession rap. Hmm. A worthwhile hack; I should develop a program that uses the known techniques of identifying a writer by his/her style, and then create "styles" to conform to for each nym. If I can fool my program, then there's at least a prayer of fooling other people's. Been there, done that. See Medusa's Tentacles from ye ol'e Detweiler wars: http://www.es.embnet.org/Services/ftp/misc/Crypt/code/medusa1b.zip (Just got it back from google. Search for other medusa1b.zip if that link is 404.) Feel free to take my code and update it to something more useful than the brainfart that it was. :) -- --Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--- + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\ \|/ :aren't security. A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\ --*--:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you \/|\/ /|\ :masked killer, but |don't email them, or put them on a web \|/ + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sunder.net
Re: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
On Thu, 19 Apr 2001, Ray Dillinger wrote: Give me a few dozen writing samples from each of a hundred known people, and another writing sample a hundred words long from one of them under a pseudonym, and I can tell you to a 90% probability which of the hundred known people wrote it. Not if all 100 know their writing will be statistically analyzed. A simple double translation through a babblefish will totaly screw your stats. The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone. James Madison The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
It isn't always private - I can remember a about a dozen years back, there was a bit of a kafuffle over certain Florida counties which had state-sponsored kosher inspectors. I don't remember what happened, but suspect they were dropped. Back when I worked in Manhatten, one of our programmers was a Conservative Jew - he always brought in his own lunch, and declined to join the rest of us in our forays into Chinatown. Every now and then I insisted that the lunch group let him pick the site, and once we wound up in a truely only-in-New York place; the Milky Way, a kosher dairy bar on lower Broadway with a spaceship theme. Among the gleaming chrome, black velvet, and fiberoptic stars, the black-clothed Hassiddim appeared almost surreal to this goy. (Imagine the closing scene from "History of the World, Part 1".) Peter Trei Declan McCullagh[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Protection racket? Nah. More like "I won't buy a lamp that's not UL-certified" or "I won't buy a novel that Oprah doesn't recommend." Kosher rating systems are a wonderful example of private reputation systems. There are hundreds of rating agencies; they seem to generally coexist -- folks who are sufficiently interested can rely on whichever they choose, or none at all. -Declan On Mon, Apr 16, 2001 at 09:34:43PM -0500, Neil Johnson wrote: I was listening to a radio program on NPR (The cypherpunks favorite statist medium :) ). They were discussing the problems with the certification of kosher food. Evidently there are many different organizations with differing ideas on what it takes to be kosher. They interviewed one restaurant owner who follows kosher practices and has been certified by a rabbi. However, the local kosher certification organization says he isn't because he doesn't have a full time rabbi on staff in the kitchen (who just happens to HAVE to be from their organization). So most orthodox Jews won't eat there. Kind of sounds like a "protection racket" to me. Neil M. Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.interl.net/~njohnson
RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
At 08:59 PM 4/16/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, David Honig wrote: At 02:06 PM 4/15/01 -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote: regard to contract enforcement. There has to be a hook where someone who does a ripoff can be punished, or else there is no deal. In infospace, there is only reputation, not meat and bones, that can be damaged. Tell that to the insulin pump or the aircraft auto-pilot... What a naive view of 'bits'. We're not talking about life-critical apps.
RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
At 09:12 PM 4/16/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: If the party were truly anonymous there would be no way to identify them to a third party in order to pass the 'reputation capital' along. There would have to be a 'persistent nym', not an anonymous one. Persistent, untraceable nym. Both. Untraceables without persistance are useful mostly for email. Persistent untraceable, that's part of the Realization.
RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, David Honig wrote: At 08:59 PM 4/16/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, David Honig wrote: At 02:06 PM 4/15/01 -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote: regard to contract enforcement. There has to be a hook where someone who does a ripoff can be punished, or else there is no deal. In infospace, there is only reputation, not meat and bones, that can be damaged. Tell that to the insulin pump or the aircraft auto-pilot... What a naive view of 'bits'. We're not talking about life-critical apps. And why not, they certainly aren't excluded by your earlier commentary above. Is your contention that crypto-anarchy only works in non-life-critical apps? Somehow I doubt that. The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone. James Madison The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, David Honig wrote: Persistent, untraceable nym. Both. Untraceables without persistance are useful mostly for email. Persistent untraceable, that's part of the Realization. Well, part of it, probably. The point being there are many 'kinds' of 'anonymity'. They are not(!) all equivalent. If there is no 'persistance' the requirement that it be 'untraceable' is moot, unless you plan on coming back (very bad idea to ever visit the same place twice, or stay in the same place more than 24 hours). The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone. James Madison The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
Re: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
On Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 06:09:38PM -0700, David Honig wrote: Untraceables without persistance are useful mostly for email. Persistent untraceable, that's part of the Realization. Is that part of the Singularity? :) -Declan
RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
At 08:45 PM 4/17/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, David Honig wrote: Persistent, untraceable nym. Both. Untraceables without persistance are useful mostly for email. Persistent untraceable, that's part of the Realization. Well, part of it, probably. The point being there are many 'kinds' of 'anonymity'. They are not(!) all equivalent. Yes that is one of the things you can actually learn from this group if your receiver can handle the S/N ratio. If there is no 'persistance' the requirement that it be 'untraceable' is moot, unless you plan on coming back (very bad idea to ever visit the same place twice, or stay in the same place more than 24 hours). If you have a non-persistant but traceable nym, what's the point? Suppose you use a one-time email account to threaten the president, but the message is traceable to your carcass (e.g., the internet cafe had surveillance cameras). You may as well use your Meat Name; its gonna hit the papers anyway. On the other hand, a non-persistant and untraceable nym is good for threatening the president, but not useful for reputation building. A persistant but untraceable nym is good for commerce. All are possible. All are useful. Ergo, all will come about, whether you like it or not.
RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, David Honig wrote: The diamond-trading jews of New York use reputation (ostracism from the community, centrally enforced by a council that rules their voluntary association) to handle 'arbitration'. They're also responsible to the same law and license that every other diamond trader in NY is responsible to. This isn't a 'market' in the economic sense, it's an extension of their religion (clearly a non-economic aspect to their culture). Jews also use a non-governmental USDA to keep their food clean. Which again isn't really a 'market' per se since there isn't a statistical issue here. ALL Jews, as opposed to some percentage of same, technicaly require their food to be kosher. They are particular mechanisms for the protection of their culture not an 'economic market' (though both have economic aspects). They don't do it to protect their income. They do it because they believe it's the 'right' thing to do, they are answering to a higher calling. The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone. James Madison The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
Re: RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
I was listening to a radio program on NPR (The cypherpunks favorite statist medium :) ). They were discussing the problems with the certification of kosher food. Evidently there are many different organizations with differing ideas on what it takes to be kosher. They interviewed one restaurant owner who follows kosher practices and has been certified by a rabbi. However, the local kosher certification organization says he isn't because he doesn't have a full time rabbi on staff in the kitchen (who just happens to HAVE to be from their organization). So most orthodox Jews won't eat there. Kind of sounds like a "protection racket" to me. Neil M. Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.interl.net/~njohnson PGP Key Finger Print: 93C0 793F B66E A0C7 CEEA 3E92 6B99 2DCC - Original Message - From: "Jim Choate" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 16, 2001 8:57 PM Subject: CDR: RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora) On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, David Honig wrote: The diamond-trading jews of New York use reputation (ostracism from the community, centrally enforced by a council that rules their voluntary association) to handle 'arbitration'. They're also responsible to the same law and license that every other diamond trader in NY is responsible to. This isn't a 'market' in the economic sense, it's an extension of their religion (clearly a non-economic aspect to their culture). Jews also use a non-governmental USDA to keep their food clean. Which again isn't really a 'market' per se since there isn't a statistical issue here. ALL Jews, as opposed to some percentage of same, technicaly require their food to be kosher. They are particular mechanisms for the protection of their culture not an 'economic market' (though both have economic aspects). They don't do it to protect their income. They do it because they believe it's the 'right' thing to do, they are answering to a higher calling. The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone. James Madison The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)
On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, Neil Johnson wrote: I was listening to a radio program on NPR (The cypherpunks favorite statist medium :) ). They were discussing the problems with the certification of kosher food. Evidently there are many different organizations with differing ideas on what it takes to be kosher. They interviewed one restaurant owner who follows kosher practices and has been certified by a rabbi. However, the local kosher certification organization says he isn't because he doesn't have a full time rabbi on staff in the kitchen (who just happens to HAVE to be from their organization). So most orthodox Jews won't eat there. Kind of sounds like a "protection racket" to me. And they admit it freely, the 'protection racket of the soul'. This is after all one of the primary facets of their lives. It's also very non-economic in character. It also occured to me a few minutes ago while I was out on an errand that it's pretty funny that crypto-anarchist are using 'heavily regulated markets' as examples of the strength of 'free market' and 'reputation capital' (being devout is related to 'reputation'?). The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone. James Madison The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
