[117193] in Cypherpunks
Re: Project: Hardening Crypto Against Big Brother
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anonymous Sender)
Sat Aug 28 01:15:42 1999
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 02:00:35 -0300
Message-Id: <199908280500.CAA22779@privacy.nb.ca>
From: Anonymous Sender <nobody@privacy.nb.ca>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Anonymous Sender <nobody@privacy.nb.ca>
Anonymous from Replay says:
>Whatta buncha retards. You losers go on and on about this crap.
>
>Look, any emergency alarm system has one important property which you
>assholes are ignoring: false alarms are far more common than real ones.
>Ask anyone who's ever heard a car alarm.
yes.that's why backups are important.your laptop/palmtop should accept standard memory cards,which contain nothing but encrypted data.then,if you lose to a false alarm,you can recover.
>If you start loading your systems with explosives or self-destruct
>devices, 99.9% of the time they go off when you don't want them to.
>Only a complete and total idiot would walk around with a bomb in his
>pocket. Yes, that means you.
agreed.aside from the personal risk,carrying explosives around is probably much more incriminating than any data carried around by most people.so its a dumb move that also attracts attention.
>Even with the less lethal destruct mechanisms, all you're buying is a
>complete pain in the ass when oops, your data all got wiped just because
>you had a power glitch or you dropped something you shouldn't.
true.but what happens to you if you forget your pgp passphrase?if it was good,yer fucked.therefore,no one should use pgp, right?nope.its a valuable tool.
>The idea of booby trapped data wiping is a stupid fantasy which has no
>basis in reality. If you lame fuckups ever did manage to do something to
>attract the cops, the self destruct probably wouldn't even work anyway.
>Anyone stupid enough to try to use something like this is too incompetent
>to make it work.
probably true re carrying a bomb around.but,by the same argument,for most users,40 bit encryption requires greater resources to break than the data is worth(web surfing?anonymous posting?).but,how many people here would accept an argument that 40 bit RC4,or DES,should be accepted as adequate?using a 2048 bit pgp key and claiming you need it is some kind of paranoid delusion for most people since even a 512 bit key is more than any reasonable credit card transaction is worth to break,let alone email to your husband/wife/dog.
but,we work to have the best possible data protection available to all.
recall one of the first cypherpunk lessons:
"a society where all the sheep are dressed in wolve's clothing is much safer for those who don't fit in."
the sheep don't really need the protection.why would one sheep in a herd be singled out for harassment?it's the square pegs that won't fit through society's round hole that need it.and in the long run society needs those who don't fit in.
monger.just monger.
