From: aba@dcs.exeter.ac.uk
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 95 15:52:51 PDT
To: na116512@anon.penet.fi
Subject: Re: not a flame please read and think about this
Message-ID: <20619.9509102252@exe.dcs.exeter.ac.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Anon writes:
> i know this is unpopular but i wish someone would respond the the
> points rather than flaming me.

Fair enough, try these...

> wei dai patents algorithms - for microsoft!!!!. that should
> fucking help us a lot. whos he gonna sue first?

Shame it got patented, one more patent.  Patents are a mess, ick!

> hey i think ill patent xor!!!! and give the patent to the nsa!!!

I was kind of wandering if it would be necessary to patent something
just to ensure someone else did patent *your* idea, if you came up
with one.

Or can you publish, and then say that's prior art, so no one else can
go patent your idea.

Otherwise it would be kind of cool for cpunks to be holding a few
patents themselves, allowing free use, just to stop some "hmm lets see
what we can patent this week", and "lets patent their work cos they
haven't yet" types stealing stuff, and disabling a whole section of
work.

Chaum's got lots of nice technology, but his patenting and $150k price
tag might not be doing him favours.  Unless he really does manage to
pull some big banks or something.  I reckon the netscape model is a
good one, give stuff away to the educational lot, sell things cheap,
have free demo versions, get the standard first before charging a
ransom.

Guess he knows what he's doing tho.  I hope so for the sake of the
future of anon ecash.  Be a shame if some of these lame things which
claim to be ecash but are really checks with full audit logs, or
credit card transactions in disguise become the defacto standard.

Problem is no one stands much of a chance unless a radically new
method of ecash can be had, he has his patents cover blind sigs?  I
guess they don't cover blind sigs in general because Brands has
applied for patents on his improved blinding techniques.

> according to sci.crypt mat blaze can prove that clipper has no back
> door. right. that sure helps us. david sternlights new hero.

That interpretation was argued.  But it's interesting anyway, if a
MKCS is equivalent to a PK, and PKs are computationally expensive, and
clipper chips are cheap, well hey maybe that's what it does mean, and
they wouldn't want to have a weak backdoor in the sense of a weak
algorithm, as it may come to light some day, similarly eventually the
thing would surely get reverse-engineered, they wouldn't want to be
caught out, I'd have thought.  They don't need that for a backdoor,
they've already got the front door - a copy of all the keys.

> pat farrel signs up with the nsa to make the key escrow rules easier
> for us morons to understand. hey thanks. maybe theyll give you a
> nicer room in the concentration kamp.

I found it real informative to have a first hand report of what was
going on.  I don't see anything wrong with going along to the meeting
just to throw your spanner in the works, sounds like the govt types
didn't have an easy time of it.

They're clearly asking for things which are unacceptable to industry,
and cpunks alike.

A lot of the stuff Pat wrote up about the NIST meeting sounded like
the majority of the attenders were trying to convert a government
request for GAK into a CKE discussion.  Would be a cool switch.

> a whole shitload of socalled cypherpunks jumping over each other to
> help and defend him.

Well you did ask :-)

> brian davis trys to convinice us that key escrow isnt so bad (who
> signs your paycheck davie?????)

Not sure that there was a motive attached (I could be wrong?), seemed
like a provoking question to me.  Got some interesting replies.

> that guy from rand corp tells us words of wisdom from robert morris
> the nsa guy as if we should write them down and pray three times a day
> to them.

I always kind of like to hear what ex-NSA types are reported as
saying, it's quite fun because you never know if they are still on the
payroll and feeding you a story for ulterior motives, or if they are
making a statement which they think is to their advantage to scare
you, or if they really are ex-NSA and are just saying what they can,
being helpful, without getting in hot water with the secrecy stuff
they have to agree to.

> carl elison designs key escrow for tis and acts like hes one of us.

Designs CKE, CKE is fine by me, it's voluntary, and just the software
equivalent of having a spare key for your own use.

GAK is the evil one.

> bruce schneier is copyrighting crypt programs and
> threatining to sue people who use it.

Let's tackle one thing at a time ok?

Lots of folks would agree patents are bad news, at least the state of
them in the US with idiots patenting XORed cursors, etc.

Clost to unanimous on GAK being evil incarnate.

Copyrights, well GPL, ILF, RMS says programs should be free.

Indeed long term copyrights look like endangered species, if crypto
anarchy has it's say.

But it's a tricky one because a lot of people make their money writing
applications, and they don't want to vote themselves out of a job.

If crypto anarchy long term proves copyrights to be outmoded, well
the market will change.

> even phil zimmerman is selling the rights to pgp. what about all the
> people who contributed code (like me). not a dime for us because
> phil is famous and your not alowed to say anythingn bad about
> him. sorry i forgot phil is god.  no one dares to complain. ask phil
> about me and when i asked about sharing profits from the code i
> conrtibuted. also about the deal with r.f...

Wouldn't be much to go around if all the contributers got a share,
there were lots of contributers.  He's the one taking the rap anyway,
and the guy who made it all possible.

> lets get back to being punks. 

Cpunks write code, so lets do it!

And lobby, and analyse govt polices, and educate about crypto, and
attend govt run white-washes (NIST etc) to register their protest.

> fuck these traitors

Nah.  Crypto anarchy and all that, it's an anarchy, you ain't going to
find 2 cpunks with exact identical view points on all topics.  Most of
the people you complained of to my understanding have done a lot of
work for the cpunk causes, as well as their implied copyright/patent
crimes.

> do crypto and fuck the nsa.

Sounds cool to me.

So whats the plan of action?  People have different ideas, but they're
all fighting for the same cause.  Down with GAK, being the #1 target
at the moment.  Privacy from governments, scaling down of hugely
bloated governments, malign cancerous growths that they are becoming
these days, freedom is what it's all about.

Adam