From: Kevlar <webmaster@max-web.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 03:02:43 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: CyberScam
In-Reply-To: <199810231545.RAA01452@replay.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19981023111259.007c9100@max-web.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 05:45 PM 10/23/98 +0200, you wrote:
>At 09:03 PM 10/22/98 -0700, Kevlar wrote:
>>And you were just kidding.....
>
>I wasn't kidding.  I was absolutely sincere when I told him to shove
>a bowling ball up his ass.

My bad. You were serious. But still...

>
>>http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,4436,2151220,00.h
tml
>>Or search zdnet's site for "scam" and choose "A Bull In Bull Market".
>
>I read the article, and if that level of cluelessness is indicative of the
>mentality of your typical online trader, then they deserve what they
>get.  I found a couple of quotes especially amusing.  These are both
>from John Reed Stark, another official-type thrown into the internet
>without a fucking life preserver, it would seem.
<snip>
>what they get.  Darwinism as applied to capitalism.
-----------------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Damn.

>
>    "Combine the Web's culture of trust, stir in the greatest bull market
>    in history, add stocks that genuinely have had phenomenal growth,
>    and you have victims who don't have any reason to disbelieve
>    promises of guaranteed 20 percent returns."

It accualy said that in the article? "CULTURE OF TRUST"? Not even our own
government trusts us enough to share enough information with people outside
the US so we can talk to them WITHOUT letting big brother watch. You hear
about all this scandal with the NSA/GOV and that swiss encryption company?
It says right in every piece i've seen that "this went on for many
years"... 5 or 6 I believe... 

Mozilla (NS), IE, and many other less well known (but certianly as popular)
WEB browsers have encryption built right into them, so you can do things
"Securely". Nobody uses their real name on the internet, unless it's for
buisness, and Login/Password lurks around the corner if you know where to
look for it. Is this indicative of a "culture of trust"? 

Naturally this is in compareison to the internet's predacessor (Not
ARPAnet, that was a government project. BBS's came first)
<grumblegrumbledamninternetstoleallthecallersfrommyboardafter5yearsofrunning
itgrumble>, which were mostly free to anyone who came and wanted to dl/ul a
file or post in the message base. And usally if it wasn't open you could
apply for access. 

People ran this software, and everyone knew it was full of holes, and
anyone could format all the hard drives in your box, but they trusted the
total strangers who were calling not to, and for the most part people
DIDN'T... simply because they liked it and didn't want to see it go away.
It used to be that identification was only required when it was necessary
to do something that REQUIRED identification, and half the time there was
an anonymous option hiding somewhere... Now if I want to download some
shareware of the "culture of trust", I gotta type in my name, vital
statics, SIN, rank, mothers maiden name, what I know about the plot to
assisinate Mr.Cigar, and a 3 page essay on why I deserve to use their
shareware that they worked long and hard to make and I'll never pay for.
It's enough to make you NOT want to do it. But we do. We keep comming back
for that thrill of watching the [Percent Complete] box stay at 97% for
hours on end until Windows plays a cheery little tune and pops up a box
telling us "It took to long, I'm not gonna wait for it any more." But I
digress.

>
>The Web's culture of trust?  Oh good, another clueless idiot in charge
>of managing internet services.  What culture of trust is it that I've
>missed in my internet travels?  Is there some online place chock full
>of trusted souls, some Cyber-commune, that I missed?
>
>Oh well, like I said, any idiot that would buy into such an obviously
>fraudulent solicitation deserves what they get.  Is it just working in a
>new medium that makes people such blatant morons, or is it simply
>indicative of the intelligence of your average American?  I'd have to
>say that I'm inclined to believe the latter.
>
-Kevlar
<Webmaster@max-web.com>

Does God know Peano Algebra? Or does she not care if strong atheists
couldnt reason their way out of a trap made of Boolean presumptions?

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, but zero knowlege is
absolutely subversive.

Overspecialization breeds in weakness. It's a slow death.

Beat your algorithms into swords, your dumb terminals into shields, and
turn virtual machines into battlefields... Let the weak say, "I am strong"
and question authority.