From: Nathan Zook <nzook@bga.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 95 19:13:01 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: JP vs Homer
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9501182150.A23592-0100000@vern.bga.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


 
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  A side note:  "The ultimate hacks of Wall Street."
    Now THERE is an idea...  You think Donald Trump could see the
    usefulness of e*?  Ivan Boskey?  (sp)
 
 
To the point:
 
     JP's withdrawal, and Homer's thread point to something that I've felt
for a while:  The classification of our tools as munitions has an important
point--they should not be used by children.  A.S.R not withstanding, (such
a person has had their childhood robbed) what we are doing is _very
serious_.  Sometimes we talk about pulling down the entire structure of our
governments and economy as if it we a Sunday afternoon parlor exercise, or
a pipe dream.  It is neither.
 
     We are on the verge of a restructuring of our society.  Cypherpunk
projects are the bleeding edge.  Implementation calls for serious,
considered efforts.  Childish behavior is not only uncalled for, it must be
anticipated and prevented, or as a minimum, found and fought.
 
 
     I have long been concerned that the remailers are far to vulnerable to 
either childish abuse or TLA attacks.  The former is reaching the stage of
threatening to swamp us, either by resource depletion, or by stigmatizing
our efforts.
 
     There is little, if anything, we can do to stop a chained, PGP'ed mail
bomb, "This is mail bomb number XXX.  Boom!"  It is therefore in our best
interest to not encourage children to send such messages in such a way.  I
believe Homer's message was erroneous for this reason.
 
     We do have considerable interest, however, in maintaining a positive
image.  Positive image is a multifaceted jewel.  We must look to preserve
it as much as possible while pursuing our goals.
 
     We are capable of controlling mail bombs, for instance, in the
following way:
 
     Take an incoming message, capture From: line.  Strip header.  MD5 body.
Add to sorted table [From: MD5(message) date].  Check for repetition of
first two fields.  If reps = 1, forward message.  If reps = 2, send message
to From:  "Possible error.  Two copies of message <message> received."  If
reps = 0 mod 5, send letter to postmaster@From:.  "Possible mailbomb or
spam.  <reps> copies of <message> received from <From:> at your site in the
past week." Clear table of entries more than a week old every midnight.
 
 
     If all remailers did this, then no matter where the net was entered,
the messages would be rejected.  And spammers/bombers would be spamming/
bombing their own postmaster.  Probably a bad idea.  If not all did it,
then add special handling to hit remailer-operator@.  This would encourage
the operator to auto-magically handle the spam-bomb himself.
 
 
     Dealing with huge files and/or TLA's is a topic for another day.
Remember:  spook@cia.gov, snitch@fbi.gov, and cracker@nsa.gov are probably
all listening, maybe even denning@aol.com.  Is it a stretch to consider
that _they_ might spam-bomb us, trying to discourage the best?
 
 
Finger or request keyserver for PGP 2.6.2 (tm) key.
PGP<->Mail/News installation incomplete.
 
Factors for modulous are not proven primes.  Key may be far weaker than
expected.  Encode at your own risk.
 
Key ID: 14712B4D 1994/12/26 Nathan H. Zook <nzook@bga.com>
Key fingerprint =  44 B3 D8 66 3D 55 1E 2E  F8 92 22 A6 33 8C DE 24 
 
 
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