From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 17:39:36 +0800
To: hallam@etna.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: whitehouse web incident, viva la web revolution
In-Reply-To: <9606052321.AA03525@Etna.ai.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <199606052352.TAA12965@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



hallam@Etna.ai.mit.edu writes:
> As you know very well it's Dr.

My apologies. From now on I will refer to you solely as Dr. Phill
Hallam-Baker, PhD.

> and as you also know, signing a futures, options or any other type
> of contract is an open ended risk.

One doesn't "sign a futures" contract. The risk is also not always
open ended by any means. If I purchase 50 unleaded gasoline contracts,
my risk is strictly limited -- I cannot lose more than the value of
the gasoline, and that would only be if it became totally worthless
(an unlikely event). If I sell an uncovered contract, things are
different, of course. With options, if I buy puts or calls, again, my
risk is totally limited -- I cannot lose more than the cost of the
contracts.

> That is how the person purchasing the contract has the theoretcial
> possibility of unlimited reward.

Er, no.

You have potentially unlimited reward in ANY purchase, and limited
risk. If I buy a box of cornflakes and next week cornflakes suddenly
become worth $1,000,000 a box, well, I've experienced reward, but my
risk was at most the cost of the cornflakes.

> >Of course they know. There just isn't anything that can be done. There
> >is no proof. Its more or less as though one finds a man with gunpowder
> >stains on his hands, and a bullet embedded in the wall of his office
> >and human blood soaking the carpet. You can't prove that he killed
> >anyone. You can never get a conviction. But you can know.
> 
> Its called circumstantial evidence and it leads to a conviction provided the 
> name of the defendant isn't O.J. Simpson. 

No, it isn't. If there is no body and no one knows who you have shot,
the rules of Corpus Delecti pretty much dictate that you aren't going
to jail. You cannot be charged with the murder of unknown persons when
there isn't even any evidence of what happened (it could very well
have been someone being accidently injured while you were showing off
your gun collection and they might have done just fine). You don't
even have to say what happened -- you are under no obligation to
testify, you know.

Now, your neighbors will probably talk badly of you forever, but you
won't be convicted of anything.

> It would certainly be enough to arrange congressional hearings, subpoena half
> the Whitehouse staff and demand every document in sight.

What documents can they subpoena? All of Hillary Clintons documents
are available. It is known what she traded and when. Without a witness
who will say who did the bribing, or broker records showing the
counterparty who was doing the bribing, nothing can be done.

You seem to assume that every crime in existance can be
prosecuted. They can't. Hillary Clinton can claim to be the victim of
a very odd set of circumstances, which is effectively what she has
done, and we have no way to put her in jail.

That doesn't mean, however, that we have to believe her.

> Speculating in derivatives is not something I am particularly
> interested in, having seen the losses of some people in this
> building who got caught in the Netscape short squeeze I'm not
> particularly inclined to rush into that market.

Netscape options were not available at the time that the shorts got
hurt. Selling short is not a derivatives investment. You don't seem to
have much of a deep knowledge of these markets -- at the very least
you speak of them in a manner guaranteed to produce derision from
professionals.

> >Switching the tickets was the fraud. Taking bribes was also a crime. 
> 
> Perry, Perry, you are off at it again. You are making allegations you cannot 
> back up.

You are right. The human blood might have been from the blood bank,
and the bullet might have been an accident. Its fucking unlikely,
though.

> You have hypothesised that there were multiple tickets but have no 
> proof,

Correct. That is why Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton aren't in
jail. However, court proof and proof good enough for me aren't the
same thing.

> All you can point to 
> is that a person with a net worth of several million

They had a considerably smaller net worth at the time.

Most of the Clinton's net worth appears to have come from dirty
political dealings over the years -- things like the Cattle Futures
bribe laundry, Rose Law Firm overbillings or dealings with the
Arkansas state government, etc. Not a shred of it can be proven in
court, of course.

> made a tidy profit speculating in cattle futures with the aid of
> some astute financial advice.

No one out there that I know of who does this for a living has ever
seen anyone make that much money in short term speculation that
way. George Soros, Paul Jones and all the rest would be envious of the
performance she had in the markets.

I don't know anyone who can articulate a theory of why the trades were
made when they were that comes from "astute thinking". They are
seemingly random. Thats probably because they WERE random.

> If you are to make such serious allegations against anyone you should be 
> prepared to back them up with something more than heresay and name
> calling.

As I've said, the evidence is compelling. It just isn't proof. Its
just like the bullet, the blood, and the powder burns on your
hands. No body and no missing person means no jail, but it doesn't
mean that one has to go about thinking what one is looking at is
perfectly innocent.

> Just because it might have been possible to conceal a bribe does not
> mean that you have evidence that a bribe was given.

If this was Richard Nixon no one would be questioning what the money
was.

I see no other explanation for what the money would have been. The
fact that her supposed advisor on these trades was the attorney for
Arkansas's most important company, Tyson Chicken, is a bit on the
suggestive side. Again, it is not proof, but proof isn't needed.

> It is not unusual for lawyers to dabble in speculation. It is also
> not unusual for clever lawyers to have friends who can give good
> advice.

If you can find anyone on earth who can give that good a bunch of
advice, please let me know. Several hedge fund managers I work with
would probably pay me for their name.

I don't know anyone who has EVER performed that well in the
markets. Its nearly impossible.

> Consider that anyone on cypherpunks might have made a tidy profit by
> realising that certain network ventures were likely to realize
> substantial profits for those dealing in the market. It dosen't take
> a genius to look at the rise Sun's stock price

Could you have made 100 to one on that in a couple of months, though?

Sure, its easy to make 20% or 30% on your money a year. Its hard, but
many people do it.

Making 10,000% in a few weeks is impossible.

> Oh come off it Perry, the Washington media do not need proof or even
> evidence to have a feeding fest.

They did for a while, but when it became obvious that the evidence was
not going to lead to the court room, it ended. Besides, most of the
media in Washington are registered Democrats. 89% of the Washington
press corps voted for Clinton from what I've read.

Your attitude seems to be "you can't prove anything so you must assume
that they are innocent." My attitude is "I can't prove anything so
they can't go to jail, but that doesn't mean I have to believe that
they are innocent -- in fact, I'm an idiot if I believe that."

> I think that given Perry's ad-hominem attacks and the fact that this
> has nothing to do with cryptography that its about time someone sent
> Perry a Perry-gram.

Cypherpunks no longer is a cryptography mailing list. Its a sewer.

Perry