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How to Save PGP
Tomcat666 sends in: "The Register got some excerpts from an interview with Phil Zimmerman. He talks about how it might be possible to save PGP (Network Associates couldn't sell it, and will stop its development), OpenPGP and the future (industry-backed OpenPGP?)." A follow-up to our story yesterday about Network Associates mothballing PGP.
Who cares about PGP... if companies and investors are not opting in, there is a reason... ponder that.
Life Sucks... Have a Beer and a Smoke then Smile Damnit!!!
Just open source it...but then again open source and security software aren't best used in the same sentence.
Oh yeah, get in Enya, Pr0n_K1ng!
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Buy a subscription, so they can sell your personal info.
Cunning linguists
1st p0st mofos
So that Ahmed and his Islamic friends can plan the next WTC attack? To hell with PGP. The world has changed.
Make your pet projects free from the start.
Notice that Phil wants to release it under a BSD style license. As much as we'd all like that, it probably isn't going to happen.
CIA Experiments with Mind Control on Children
by Jon Rappoport
The CIA mind-control apparatus has been well known since 1975, when 10 large boxes of documents were released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Several good books were then written on the subject of the CIA program known as MK-ULTRA. Officially spanning ten years from 19 52-62, MK-ULTRA involved the use of LSD on unwitting military and civilian subjects in the United States. LSD and more powerful compounds were given under duress as brainwashing and truth serum drugs. The program's aim was to find drugs which would irresistibly bring out deep confessions or wipe a subject' s mind clean and program him or her as "a robot agent."
In experimental test situations, people were given acid without their knowledge, then interrogated under bright lights with doctors sitting in the background taking notes. Threats would be made. The test subjects were told that their LSD "downer trips" would be extended indefinitely if they refused to reveal their closely-guarded military secrets. The people being interrogated in this way were CIA employees, U.S. military personnel and, abroad, agents suspected of working for the other side in the Cold War. Long-term severe debilitation and several documented deaths resulted. Much, much more could be said about MK-ULTRA.
None of this prepared people for the explosive testimony made on March 15, 1995, in Washington, D.C., before the President's Committee on Radiation, however. In unpublicized sessions, New Orleans therapist Valerie Wolf introduced two of her patients who had uncovered memories of being part of extensive CIA brainwashing programs as young children (in one case, starting at age seven). Their brainwashing included torture, rape, electroshock, powerful drugs, hypnosis and death threats. According to their testimony, the CIA then induced amnesia to prevent their recalling these terrifying sessions.
Both Wolf and her patients stated that they recovered the memories of this CIA program without regression or hypnosis techniques. In other words, these patients spontaneously discovered this information about themselves and their pasts.
Although the committee was mainly concerned with radiation, they permitted Valerie and her patients to testify because, astonishingly, several doctors who had administered the mind- control experiments had also been identified by other Americans secretly exposed to radiation. Apparently there was a crossover.
Prominent names surfaced in the March 15 testimony: Richard Helms, former head of the CIA, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who ran MK- ULTRA and Dr. John Gittinger, Gottlieb's protege. These men and others were directly accused of participating in grisly mind- control efforts on children.
Predictably, this testimony received no media attention.
I now have it all, including many pages submitted to the committee that will likely never be released as part of their final report. Only a small percentage of the pages were read aloud at the hearing. Included are corroborating statements from other therapists around the country and several of their patients. I have now released all of this testimony as a book, U.S. Government Mind-Control Experiments On Children.
When the sickening shock starts to wear off, deeply disturbing questions flood one's mind: just what was this CIA program? How extensive was it? What was its purpose?
From what I have been able to discover so far, many American children, as well as children from Mexico and South America, were used over a period of about 40 years, starting around 1948. In fact, the program may still be going on. Doctors and agents who administered it wanted to obtain control over the minds of these children, ostensibly to create superagents who wouldn't remember even what missions they carried out, because of hypnotically induced amnesia (which could be removed by their controllers and reinstalled at will). (1)
Children were trained as sex agents, for example, with the job of blackmailing prominent Americans -- primarily politicians, businessmen and educators. A great deal of filming was done for this purpose. Eventually, people from the inner core of the CIA program filmed each other, and some of the centers where children were used as sex agents got out of control and turned into CIA-operated sex rings.
Some children were considered expendable and simply murdered.
One person who states that he was in this program as a child said, off the record:
"They tried out their brainwashing techniques on the kids from Mexico and South America. They were considered expendable. But on another echelon of the program, they went after the best and the brightest American kids. Making perfect agents to combat the Soviets wasn't, I don't think, their ultimate objective. I can't remember what that was."
At this point, I made a suggestion:
"Well, if they were choosing the best and brightest, maybe they figured these kids would one day rise to important positions in the society, and they wanted to gain long-term control over them, so they would be under their thumb, so they could tap them at will -- a way of controlling the future society."
"Maybe," he said. "The Nazis gained control over the intelligentsia in Germany. That was a very key step in their dominance. That was the first thing they did".
"This smells very much like a Nazi program in the U.S.," I said. "I don't mean all the controllers were German, but the style of it, the insanity."
He said, "They brought over a lot of Nazi doctors after the war and not just to build rockets -- for a lot of projects."
Other people who said that they had been used as children in the program remember that doctors with German accents were definitely present at the sessions. One therapist, who shared this information informally with colleagues around the country, states that, so far, the oldest person she has heard of who was in the program is now 52; the youngest is now nine.
Since a number of people who were brainwashed, tortured and drugged in these experiments try to resolve their experiences in therapy, psychiatrists and other professional therapists are hearing these stories. They are told, for example, that CIA controllers sometimes dressed up in Satanic costumes to further traumatize the children, also providing a cover that wouldn't be believed if the children ever talked.
It is worth noting that there is a movement to discredit these " recovered" memories, and the most prominent group, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), has several board members with CIA or military-intelligence connections -- including the notorious Dr. Louis "Jolly" West of UCLA, who tried to establish a center for "the study of violence" at the university in the 1970s. This center's specialty would have been psychosurgery, a horrendous melting of brain connections, supposedly to curb people's "violent tendencies."
FMSF maintains that a person always remembers abuse done to him or her, and therefore any new recovery of it in therapy is false and must have been fabricated through misleading suggestions by the therapist. While it is certainly true that such inducement happens in therapy, the blanket statement that all recovered memory is invented is unsubstantiated.
In a written statement to Dr. Wolf that was included in her testimony to the president's committee, well-known researcher and psychiatrist, Colin Ross said,
"Published articles in my files include descriptions of administration of 150 mcg of LSD to children age 5-10 years on a daily basis for days, weeks, months, and in a few cases even years. Neurosurgeons at Tulane, Yale, and Harvard did extensive research on brain electrode implants with intelligence funding, and combined brain implants with Large numbers of drugs including hallucinogens."
Ross based his report on his more than 20 years of investigating CIA mind control.
Chris De Nicola, one of Dr. Wolf's patients who testified before the president's committee, named her controller as a Dr. Greene, a name reported by several other mind-control subjects. It may well be that this name was a cover used by various CIA and military-contracted experimenter-torturers. Here is a quote from her testimony:
"[Dr. Greene] used me in radiation experiments both for the purpose of determining the effects of radiation on various parts of my body and to terrorize me as an additional trauma in the mind-control experiments. [She was eight years old.]
"The rest of the experiments took place in Tucson, Arizona, out in the desert. I was taught how to pick locks, be secretive, use my photographic memory to remember things and a technique to withhold information by repeating numbers to myself. [She is obviously talking about being trained as an agent.]
"Dr. Greene moved on to wanting me to kill dolls that looked like real children. I stabbed a doll with a spear once after being severely tortured, but the next time I refused. He used many techniques but as I got older I resisted more and more.
He often tied me down in a cage, which was near his office. Between 1972 and 1976 he and his assistants were sometimes careless and left the cage unlocked. Whenever physically possible, I snuck -into his office and found files with reports and memos addressed to CIA and military personnel. Included in these files were project, subproject, subject and experiment names with some code numbers for radiation mind- control experiments which I have submitted in my written documentation. I was caught twice and Dr. Greene tortured me ruthlessly with electric shock, drugs, spinning on a table, putting shots in my stomach, in my back, dislocating my joints and hypnotic techniques to make me feel crazy and suicidal..."
Is there a precedent for this kind of sadistic treatment by CIA and military personnel? Indeed there is. Here is a quote from the introduction to my book, U.S. Government Mind-Control Experiments On Children. It contains information from reliable published sources; such as The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, by John Marks (2), Acid Dreams, by Martin Lee (3) and The Mind Manipulators, by Alan Scheflin (4). In part, these authors derived their information on the CIA and MK-ULTRA from the ten boxes of information released suddenly in 1975 by the agency in response to Freedom of Information Act requests:
"Dr. Robert Heath of Tulane University, as early as 1955, working for the Army, gave patients-LSD while he had electrodes implanted deep inside their brains.
"Canadian researcher, Dr. Ewan Cameron, under long-term CIA contract, attempted to depattern, and reprogram his psychiatric patients' personalities wholesale. He started with 15 to 65 days of 'sleep therapy,' during which a patient was kept under nearly 24 hours a day, through the administration of cocktails of Thorazine, Nembutal, Seconal, Veronal, and Phenergam. Throughout this sleep period, the patient would be awakened two or three times a day for electroshock treatments, given at an intensity 20-40 times the 'normal' convulsion-producing strength.
"In the mid-1950's, Paul Hoch, M.D., a man who would become Commissioner of Mental Hygiene for the State of New York, then a laborer in the field for the CIA, gave a 'pseudoneurotic schizophrenic' patient mescaline. The patient had a not- unfamiliar heaven-and-hell journey on the compound. But Hoch followed this up with a transorbital leucotomy...Hoch also gave a patient LSD, and a local anesthetic, and then proceeded to remove pieces of cerebral cortex, asking at various moments whether the patient's perceptions were changing."
Claudia Mullin, the other of Dr. Wolf's patients who testified before the President's Committee on Radiation, said her experiences with CIA mind-control experiences began when she was seven years old:
"In 1958, 1 was to be tested, they told me, by some important doctors coming from a place called the 'Society' [the Human Ecology Society, a CIA front]. I was told to cooperate; answer any of their questions. Then, since the test 'might hurt,' I would be given 'shots, x-rays, and a few jolts of electricity.' I was instructed not to look at anyone's face too hard and to ignore names,' as this was 'a very secret project' but to be brave an all those things would help me forget...
"A Dr. John Gittinger tested me and Dr. Cameron gave me the shocks and Dr. Greene the x-rays...By the time I left to go home, just like every time from then on, I would recall nothing of my tests or the different doctors. I would only remember whatever explanations Dr. Robert G. Heath [of Tulane Medical School] gave me for the odd bruises, needle marks, burns on my head and fingers and even the genital soreness. I had no reason to believe otherwise. Already, they had begun to control my mind!
"The next year, I was sent to a place in Maryland called Deep Creek Cabins to learn how to 'sexually please men.' Also, I was taught how to coerce them into talking about themselves. It was Richard Helms (Deputy Director of the CIA), Dr. Gottlieb, Captain George White and Morse Allen, who all planned on filming as many high government and agency officials and heads of academic institutions and foundations as possible...I was to become a regular little 'spy' for them, after that summer, eventually entrapping many unwitting men, including themselves, all with the use of a hidden camera. I was only nine when this kind of sexual humiliation began."
Captain George White was a notorious agent for the CIA. He set up a brothel in San Francisco in the 1960s and, using hidden cameras, filmed men having sex with prostitutes. The men's drinks were "spiked" with LSD. In 1950, Morse Allen, another important CIA, man, was appointed head of Project BLUEBIRD, another CIA mind- control program.
Ms. Mullin states that she was adopted when she was two years old. By the time she reached seven she had already been abused extensively by her mother. Her mother apparently turned her over for "testing" to CIA-connected people and Claudia then entered a 27-year period of what can only be called enslavement. Claudia states that she has been monitored, that she is still monitored and watched by agency related people, including a medical doctor. Now living in New Orleans, she has given information to local police authorities about her situation. In her testimony to the president's committee, Claudia remarked,
"Although the process of recalling these atrocities is certainly not an easy task, nor is it without some danger to myself and my family...I feel the risk is worth taking."
Claudia's therapist, Dr. Wolf, has written to the president's committee,
"To the best of my knowledge, [Claudia] has read nothing about mind-control or CIA covert operations. Since she decided to listen carefully and remember as much as she could about conversations among the researchers, her memories are extraordinarily complete. I have sent written copies of memories to Dr. Alan Scheflin [author of The Mind Manipulators] for validation and he has confirmed that she has knowledge of events and people that are not published anywhere, that some of her memories contain new information and that some are already known and published. Some of her memories have been confirmed by family members. She has also shown me old scrapbooks where she wrote notes to remember what was happening to her and hid the notes under pictures in the scrapbook."
I spoke with Alan Scheflin in May of this year. He said he had found one piece of information Claudia had mentioned in her recollections that had no precedent in published material. It involved a connection between two government researchers.
This is just the tip of the iceberg on the 130 pages of testimony given before the President's Committee on Radiation, and it is also just the beginning of a history that will undoubtedly widen in the coming months and years. Dr. Wolf told me that when word got around she was going to testify before the president's committee, she was contacted by about 40 therapists "in just the 10 days leading up to my trip to Washington." The therapists had heard similar CIA mind-control stories from their own patients. Many of these professionals are afraid to go on the record about their patients' stories, as censure from their professional societies is a reality. The political mood these days is not conducive to granting an aura of credibility to revelations of CIA brainwashing.
So what else is new?
[Jon Rappoport is a distinguished investigative reporter and the author of AIDS, INC. He can be found inhabiting the late night airwaves of KPFK radio in Los Angeles and lecturing at the Hardware Humanitarian House in Santa Monica, California.]
Notes:
1) See "From the Inside Out," Perceptions, March/April 1995, p.58
2) Paddington Press, New York, 1978
3) W.W. Norton, New York, 1979
4) Grove Press, New York, 1985
I am into the copy and paste.
The body's hands trembled a bit. Two days without notice from Project Faustus and now a note from this "Krantz," (a Faustus operative, to be certain) requesting a meeting at the nearest Starbucks. Who was this Krantz? Had I met him before? Should I conduct myself in the steely protocol of business associate or the jovial style of an old friend? The note itself, hand-scrawled messily enough to tax my character-recognition algorithms, seemed to suggest that we were old friends. However, a careful analysis of the syntax and diction revealed an empty tone. Empty but affable. Preparing for this meeting was going to be difficult.
Five minutes later, I was clad in Atkins' most impressive suit (black with red pinstripes) and ambling through the Starbucks entryway. The time was 14:03:27 CST, and the place was nearly empty. A gaunt man with large glasses waved me over to a booth in the corner. He stood up excitedly as I made my way to the table, knocking over several emptied cups of latte as he offered me his seat. I sat down, sizing him up as best I could. His exterior resembled that of a normal human, but I noticed his movements were a bit different. Straining my ears, I picked up the faintest hint of a humming sound.
"Well, here I am, it's me! Jay Krantz!" he said, beaming at me, as if I should be impressed. "I bet you think that I'm here to punish you. That I am a grim enforcer, an out-of-touch political atavism solely concerned with those who step out of line in our little project. That's not the case at all. Step this way, please." Krantz motioned towards the bathroom. Atkins' face must have betrayed my reluctance.
"I understand your concern," said Krantz, "an invitation from a male into a Starbucks bathroom is certainly taboo, especially to those raised on a diet of Big Media and Big Corporations. But I just want to get a little-(here, he indicated his nose) before we go. You're welcome to some if you want."
I followed him into the bathroom, wondering what he meant. As we entered, he bolted the door and produced a small metallic box from his pocket. "In this Post-Columbine, Post-9-11, Post-Corporate-Colonization-of-the-Internet period, one needs a litlle extra to keep the parts running smoothly," he explained, opening the box to reveal a heap of white powder. "Help yourself."
"Is it...Lik-M-Aid?" I stared longingly at the powder.
"I suppose you could call it that. Whatever it is, it's good shit."
I pinched together as much of the powder as I could, splashing it across my lips. But the delightful sweetness of LIK-M-AID was nowhere to be found. It was a bitter, chalky candy, the type I normally avoid. I gulped it down, not wishing to upset Krantz. He winced and the rest of the powder disappeared into his nose.
"Ahhhhh!" he exhaled, his breath nearly singeing my eyebrows. "Okay, let's go, shall we?" As he staggered towards the door, I detected an unusual amount of heat radiating from his body.
"Where are we going, Mr. Krantz?" I inquired, scanning his face thoughtfully. This was the longest exchange I had yet shared with a human; I needed some feedback on how skillfully I was progressing.
"Oh, it's a little place I like to go when I celebrate. A place that is unlikely to stimulate you intellectually, but is nevertheless an enjoyable and irreverant ride!" He motioned me into his vehicle, a gigantic silver sport utility vehicle, pasted with small signs reading "Think Globally, Act Locally," "Free Dmitri!", and "Keep Your Laws Off My Body." Puzzled, I allowed myself to be swallowed up by the vehicle and whisked away. My heart began to race as Krantz nudged the car around quick turns, nearly flattening a human bicyclist in the process.
"Old technology," he grinned, extending the center finger from his left hand. "But I digress. I'm sure you're dying to know more about me! Go ahead, ask away!" How was Krantz able to discern my hunger for knowledge? Perhaps my cover was slipping...but I would be foolish to pass up an opportunity to learn more about Project Faustus.
"How did you become involved in Project Faustus?" I stared at Krantz earnestly, trying to express my deep interest in a manner that he could not ignore.
"Oh yes! Well, Project Faustus wasn't always involved in your field-you know, networking and wetworks-to-digital transfer. It's been around since at least the forties, and I hopped in around the seventies, you know, during the oil crisis, when our national leaders faced a time of trial in which...oh wait, we're here." He ambled his car into a parking lot. I could already detect the strains of rock music emanating from a large building nearby. I peered up to see a large neon sign that said this: PT'S Exotics XXX!
"They have a great buffet here!" explained Krantz, pushing me towards the building's entrance.
A burly man stared at me as Krantz handed him some money. Then the man handed some of the money back to Krantz. "Want some ones?" asked Krantz. "Don't worry, this is all on me." I grasped the wad of one-dollar bills, noting the differences between those and the twenties which I had once processed so often.
Krantz then drew back the black rubbery curtain, and so many sensual experiences exploded into my perceptions that I can scarcely describe them all. Small, contained explosions of colored light blasted around a raised platform. Rhythmic pounding usurped my ears and shook my organs. As I struggled to compose myself, I spied a human form pulsing and vibrating in the midst of the lights (seemingly sick and disoriented). I stared at the human, unable to pry my eyes away from its vibrating form.
"Wow, her tits are more inflated than the dot-com bubble in 1998, wouldn't you say?" it was Krantz's voice, and then his hand (a bit cold) slapping me on the back. "Why don't you give her a little venture capital?" He pointed at his own stack of dollar bills, then over towards the light.
I palmed the sweaty wad of cash in my suit. I looked at the human, gyrating and glistening in the semi-darkness. I felt a stirring...
I am a sentient ATM.
Isn't GPG (an OS implementation of the PGP protocol) exactly what you suggest? It's been around for quite some time.
--
The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.
This isn't the end of PGP. OpenPGP is always going to be around. (or almost always - its open but everyone could decide to trash it if they like)
This is the end of commercial PGP. This isn't a good thing for PGP to be used in commercial settings. Also this is the end of the PGPDesktop which was the only thing close to an option for (l)users.
Hopefully NSI will release the code in a manner that will allow a smaller company to add value and repackage it to large corporations.
$sig=$1 if($brain =~
pretty gay penis's don't need to be saved.
/. get's about what, a million unique hits? NAI put 36 million into PGP, and since they're not finding a buyer, we can assume they'd be willing to take somewhat less for it.. let's say 25 million. If /. changes it's subscribtion pay pal account instead to be a funding house to purchase PGP, each user could donate 25 dollars,and we'd have a co-op that now owns PGP. This co-op could then market it as an inexpensive payware product, available for download complete with source code for a $5 license fee. This rids the need for /. subscriptions by generating income, opens the most current version of source code up for review, and allows independant programmers to modify this source code to continually improve the product.
A win win situation! 8-)
IANAL. This is tongue in cheek. I hate having to explain myself...
Isn't PGP kind of a dead end, ultimately? Based on my limited (and quite possibly wrong) understanding, as quantum computing research continues, it will become possible to break this encryption. Right?
I actually have no objections to it being presevered and developed, especially if it were Free Software, what I'm asking for is reasons for it to be preseved from the point of view of Free Software advocates.
"Noam Chomsky is seen by many as one of the more prominent anarchists in the united states. But, many times in the last several years he has come out publicly in favor of strengthening the federal government. Moreover, he argues that there is no contradiction between this stance and his advocacy of a stateless future. Such a position is in direct conflict with the traditional anarchist insight that means inevitably influence (and frequently corrupt or totally derail) intended ends, and deserves examination and rebuttal.
Chomsky bases his support for the federal government on his contention that private power wielded by corporations is much more dangerous to people than state action, and that government can, and should, protect its defenseless citizens against the depredations of the capitalists. While the power of private corporations in the united states is truly awesome and oppressive, this power exists because these businesses are supported by the state, a point that Chomsky concedes. Anarchists have generally opposed the state for precisely this reason: that it protects the interests of some, primarily the wealthy exploiters, while preventing others, especially working people, from challenging this power on their own. But, because of poor and working people's movements, the state has instituted some social welfare programs and instituted some regulation of private business to ameliorate the conditions of those most harmed by state-supported capitalism. These and other alleged public services are the aspects of government power that Chomsky supports and would see expanded.
Chomsky further argues that the state is the only form of illegitimate power in which people have a real chance to participate. Besides the question of whether it is moral for people to participate in the exercise of this illegitimate power, he doesn't make a very convincing argument for his contention. In one interview he states that the pentagon budget is going up, while the population oppose this by a 6 to 1 ratio. In another article he says that government regulatory mechanisms are very weak, and mostly controlled by the corporations anyway. He even quotes a poll in one of his interviews to the effect that 82% of americans feel the state is not run in the interests of the people. Nowhere does he back up his claim that government is or has been open to popular participation in any meaningful sense.
Governments have been influenced by popular pressure, however. The anti-war movement made it impossible for the military to use nuclear weapons in southeast asia, thereby preventing a united states conquest of vietnam. Anti-racist activists in the sixties and seventies pressured governments at all levels to eradicate racist laws and practices and brought about the end of most legal segregation. But these are not examples of people participating in government. Instead these are instances of outsiders (which regular people will always be vis-a-vis the state) bringing pressure on an evil institution to change its ways.
Such measures can also bring about change in private institutions as well. The labor movement brought about changes using pressure tactics such as strikes and sabotage against private businesses, and activists have assisted workers with boycotts and public actions directed at corporations as well. While it may be easier in some settings to win concessions from government because individual politicians wish to be elected in the sham of elections, people acting for themselves can often accomplish great things on their own in both the public and private arenas.
Government is a package. The welfare state is also the warfare state, and, while Chomsky criticizes the federal government's support of prisons and corporations, he thinks government can protect people from prisons and corporations. He says that people can participate in government, but complains that it is not under popular influence. Government is force and should be done away with. People can act for themselves and take care of themselves. That is the anarchist attitude to the state, and Chomsky rejects it.
In fact, he is troubled that people might hate or fear the government. He admits that the state steals from poor people to subsidize wealthy people, but he thinks discussions about whether the government can be trusted to care for poor people are irrelevant. He dismisses as far-right the rejection of public schools. He feels that when people feel disillusioned about power, they turn to "irrational" alternatives. He arrogantly states that those who think there is a contradiction in supporting centralized state power even though one opposes it "just aren't thinking very clearly."
Chomsky seems not to be able to envision any means of offsetting the power of private tyrannies other than increasing the power of public tyrannies. Chomsky speaks glowingly of the efforts of poor people in places such as Haiti. "Poor people, people in the slums, peasants in the hills, managed to create out of their own activity a very lively, vibrant civil society with grass-roots movements and associations and unions and ideals and commitments and hopes and enthusiasm and so on which was astonishing in scale, so much so that without any resources they were able to take over the political system," He seems to see their assumption of state power as a victory, unable to envision that people this resourceful could continue to function quite nicely without a government. And people are this resourceful, both in haiti and the united states, and this is where anarchists get their inspiration.
Even Barbara Ehrenreich, a social democrat, and, with Chomsky, a member of the New Party, can countenance non-statist solutions to working and poor people's problems. As she says, "[W]e can no longer allow ourselves to be seen as cheerleaders fro government activism.We need to emphasize strategies and approaches that do not depend on the existing government, that in fact bypass it as irrelevant or downright obstructionist." She then goes on to mention organizing the unorganized, citizen initiatives against corporate abuses, and non-governmental self-help projects in the tradition of the feminist health centers of the 70s. In addition, she sees the state as a clear enemy in its erosion of civil liberties and the growth of the punishment industry. She calls her approach "progressive libertarianism." Such an outlook is closer to an anarchist one than is Chomsky's.
Unlike Chomsky, many rightly see that government schools educate badly, government welfare does not serve poor people well, and government action is largely against the interests of regular people. He is right that private corporations are not in the business of being humanitarian, but neither is the state. Instead of criticizing and fearing this anti-government feeling, we should encourage it and seek to extend it to all areas of government, including the military, police, and taxes.
Private corporate power exists only because it is protected by the state. Government reduces competition and limits entry into the market place with various licensing and regulatory schemes, and grants monopolies and subsidies to favored businesses. Chomsky himself concedes that corporations would not be successful if forced to submit to market discipline, and that markets are under attack. But in addition to actively promoting concentration of private corporate power, the government prevents people from defending their own interests in disputes with corporations with its police powers and laws that disarm working people. Such disempowerment of people makes them unable to resist the power of public institutions as well, allowing the state to tax, regulate, and imprison people at its whim. Abolishing state power is a more effective and libertarian method of limiting private and public tyranny than is increasing the scope of the federal government. Only anarchist means have any hope of producing anarchist ends."
I am into the copy and paste.
In the article Phil focuses on easy to use GUI interfaces for less technically adept end users as the major feature that the OpenPGP/GPG projects need to focus on. This is the main advantage that the commerical version provided, and the main thing lacking in all the other alternatives.
He clearly states that the PGP protocol is in no danger whatsoever, and will continue to remain widely implemented.
Having spent many hours deciphering gpg command lines to use PGP to its full potential makes you realize how usefull a simple, easy to use GUI interface to a PGP would be. (Implicit in this task is integration with other applications, however, you can find plugin support for almost anything that you wish to use PGP in)
The commerical PGP is only one implementation of the open PGP standard. Even up to 6.5.8, full source code was available from Network Associates.
Plus, there is GPG, PGPi, and other freeware implementations of the standard (under the umbrella of OpenPGP.org).
I don't see why "PGP" as a whole is going down.
It's like saying if Microsoft or Netscape decided to stop relasing browsers, then the entire WWW is doomed, when there's still Konquerer, Opera, Mozilla, and the whole W3C standards body, etc...
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
- Slick interface
- Good sponsor
- Open source
Since a slick interface would mean development and they current development is in limbo(with two shipable inferfaces in stock!!) I really don't think that an option. Second option is a sponsor, but since nobody is willing to buy pgp, I don't really think sponsorship will be attrictive to sponsors. Leaves only one optionI was doing my taxes today (oh joy) and marked the box that mentioned something like $3 to the Presidential election campaign fund. Perhaps we could have a few donation check boxes to buy lucrative abandonware into the open source world.
Then again, sometimes it might be good to just start some projects completely over. Remember Netscape?
GnuPG. Because only the technically oriented deserve privacy.
I'm a concientious
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
ass!
This is purely for scientific and study research.
4 28303184581123062450458870768760594321234762576642 74945547644195154275867433811981387466471553446001 28172402854835142675669719253496205220699188798491 81484706819044791457088226110939902411592763469776 33946326637808872646881505242830850704932797792349 29990615521801952267534305575027779393713330209195 00860225343124870843796867881478506011320772871728 19942445113232019492229554237898606631074891074722 42561739680319169243814676235712934292299974411361
6 92569409724669036067145935665469179209556046350643 13650735649742880036461009375273062497609978034621 28542518686344030635843911820718776925659054905814 34421018260726150246940722888295355624667254579581
4 18122726805813382156225921428772801214922594206458 07834997795076354606802490111106153804429088209985 42738154413103798892589988519726447464444686565204 60558816777620924293750629417010292417375848211381
RSA-500 = 1897194133748626656330534743317202527237183591953
= 3742712177062058309132142475474122439840170094313
* 5069035619078461342194397405029748827473917947039
If he would have put it under the GPL from the beginning we would not be seeing this. He would be like the Linus of crypto, but he was so determined to controll the things he shouldn't be controlling that he lost controll over the things he should be.
Sorry, I don't believe in paying for software. Or charging for it. Ever.
One app that is going a along way to making PGP slightly easier is Evolution. It has the best PGP solution I've seen yet for email. Easy and simple to use, even Joe Barr agrees.
But, the problem is you still must maintain your GnuPG bits manually on the command line. That was the beauty of NA's program. It had a slick GUI. Of course, in the end it didn't take me very long to pick up how to use gpg via the command line, but for the general populace it's still a barrier.
Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!
PGP is of course dying. Making it open source will simply lead it to a long slow death much like Linux itself. I forsee microsoft purchasing this and putting it into the operating system itself.
nt
What about the possibility of PGP technology being a part of the next major upgrade of open internet protocals (ie, POP, SMTP, etc .. )
:)
It seems to be that possibly losing out on the client-side 'niceness' that a commercial PGP implementation provides could be a non issue if the next round of standards include support for providing PGP mechanisms as part of their protocols (not that you'd HAVE to use PGP, but that PGP would somewhere in the protocol if you wanted to use it.)
That would reduce the need to depend on the never-surefire client market penetration in order to see widespead and longterm usage of PGP as a means of protecting ones privacy.
I've always felt open protocols make the best vehicles for propogating public-interest technology. That way, you dont need [Mailclient] + [PGP intergrated client] but [Mailclient that supports Next Gen Protocol X] where one of X's functionality sets uses a private/public key encryption scheme. Not sure what the likelihood of that happening is, tho, both from the perspective of when we'll outgrow the current crop of protocols, whether the new crop will be open enough to get public interests into the design phase, and whether the creators of said protocol would even think it would be a good idea to include a PGP layer in the protocol.
"Old man yells at systemd"
GPGME is a project to do this. From the website: "It provides a High-Level Crypto API for encryption, decryption, signing, signature verification and key management."
It's a work in progress. It's useable, but of course, there is the standard disclaimer. Compiles fine on most Linux distributions. It needed a small amount of help to compile on Mac OS X. Not sure about any other OSes.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
http://slashdot.org/~forkspoon/journal/5783
"got some"? Christ, READ the fucking article before hitting SUBMIT.
> And what's scandalous is that NAI has OS X and XP-ready versions, but won't ship them.
/create/ inefficiency in a market rather than reduce it.
We need some laws that force work into the public domain if it wont be exploited for the private domain. I'm sick of companies keeping what will go into the dustbin. This is another example of how too much private interest can
Of course, I respect that the work in question would probably have to pass some criterium whereby its release into the public domain would not cause significant damage to the company in question (if the company is to live on), but surely we can't believe that scenarios like this outweigh the benifits of laws forcing companies to push work they lose interest/money in back into the public domain?
"Old man yells at systemd"
Hello??? DO you have a brain with which to think? The parent comment was about how software being closed source does not necessarily make it secure. Microsoft is an example of someone making software closed source and yet very *insecure*. Damn morons...
I have this uneasy suspicion that this is directly related to the Dubya-ment's new crackdown on freedo^H^H^H^H^H^H terrorism. Sure I'm paranoid, but the new McCarthyism may be farther-reaching than anyoine thinks.
Basically, you believe that people should be forced by big brother to share what they developed. This is on par with very few bad ideas that I have seen on /.. If I am an inventor, and I am eccentric enough to want to keep my inventions to myself, it's my business.
An economic system can NEVER be more intelligent that the people who control it, whether it's the combined brains of a million entrepreneurs, or a communist dictator. The best we can hope for is inccentifying intelligence, which laise-fair capitalism seems to do best.
(Don't mod me down because you dislike my opinions, but feel free to mod me up if you agree )
I'm a concientious
The Plea of Nikos Maziotis
to the Athens Criminal Court
First, I do not intend to pretend to be the "good guy" here where I was forced to come. I will not plead for anything, because I do not consider myself a criminal. I am a revolutionary. I have nothing to repent. I am proud of what I have done. The only thing I regret is the technical error that was made so that the bomb didn't explode such that my fingerprint was found on it afterward and I ended up here. This is the only thing I repent. And something else also. All that stuff shouldn't have been at my house. It should have been kept somewhere else.
You must have in mind that although you are judges and sitting higher than me, many times revolutionaries, and myself specifically, have judged you long before you judge me. We are in opposite camps, hostile camps. The revolutionaries and revolutionary justice (because I don't believe that this court is justice, it's the word justice in quotation marks) many times judge their enemies more mercilessly, when they get the chance to impose justice.
I will begin many years ago. We don't have any crime of mine to judge here. On the contrary, we will talk about crimes, but not mine. We will talk about the crimes of the state, of its mechanisms, of justice and police crimes....
The first time I can say I was politicized is when I took part in a demonstration in 1985. It was the 17th of November. I was fourteen then, and one policeman, Melistas, shot and killed a fifteen year-old, Kaltezas. I had not participated in the riots of that night. The same evening after the murder the Chemistry School was occupied and in the morning special forces carried out a police raid on the building to evacuate it and they arrested the anarchists and youths who were inside. The next day five thousand people occupied the Polytechnic School--if I remember correctly because I was young then and didn't have much information. These occupations were precisely a reaction to the murder of Kaltezas by policeman Melistas. "Justice," five years later, in January of 1990, found Melistas innocent.
What I mean by saying this is that in reality you are abettors of crimes, at least according to me. Then, in January and February of '90 I took part in the occupation of the Polytechnic, which occurred as a reaction to the court-decision which found Melistas not guilty for the murder of Kaltezas. There were riots and damages, store windows were broken, stones and molotov cocktails thrown.... I participated in these events. From then on I could consciously say I was an anarchist.
And when I say anarchist, I mean that I am against the state and capital. That our purpose is to subvert the state and the capitalist regime. We want a society without classes, without hierarchy and without domination. The biggest lie of all times is that the state is society. I think Nietzsche has also said this--that the state lies.
We are opposed to the division of society into classes, we are against a separation between those who give orders and others who obey orders. This authoritarian structure penetrates the whole of society and it is this structure that we want to destroy. Either with peaceful or with violent means--even with guns. I have no problem with that.
I will contradict my brother who said before that he didn't want the guns in order to make war. They were for war. Maybe they were just kept there, but the guns are for war. You don't just have them to keep them at home. I might have kept them as they were, but they are to make war and I make war.... The bomb in the ministry was an act of war.
Since 1990 I have been convicted many times for my actions, for multiform actions.
I was convicted because I refused to serve the army. Not because I have any problem with weapons or with violence, I repeated that in the military court. The fact that this time I was arrested in possession of guns means that I have no problem with weapons or with violence. I am not at all a pacifist. Because neither society nor the state are peaceful. As long as I receive violence I will respond with violence.
I spent seven months in a military prison. I have been convicted for deserting the army and for evasion of military services. The second time I was released after 51 days of a hunger strike.
I have been arrested in '94 in the occupation of the Economic university along with 51 comrades of mine, when Giorgos Balafas and Odysseas Kampouris were on hunger strike. This occupation of the Economic School was also an action of solidarity. In conditions where we couldn't gather anywhere, nor demonstrate, we had decided to squat a university and use it as a center of counter-information about the cases of Giorgos Balafas and Odysseas Kampouris, who were then imprisoned.
In '95 I was arrested with 500 other people in the revolt of the Polytechnic in November. That occupation happened because there were many different political prisoners in jail--Kostas Kalaremas, Odysseas Kampouris, Giorgos Balafas who was arrested again in the meantime, Spyros Dapergolas, Christoforos Marinos and four persons from Thessaloniki who were arrested when the demonstration in which they were participating was attacked by the police on the 14th of November--and because there was a prisoners' revolt going on in Koridallos jail. For this occupation I was at last sentenced to one year imprisonment along with many others of my comrades. In all these actions my comrades and myself have taken complete responsibility.
So, during this decade since I can call myself an anarchist, I have used many forms of action. I have written and distributed leaflets. I took part in postering. I participated in occupations, violent or peaceful. For example, the occupation of the Economic School didn't have any violent character but the Special Police Units and the Riot Police invaded and arrested us. There were even policemen of the Special Units wearing ski-masks who entered in order to break the chains on the gate.
In the case of the Polytechnic we didn't pretend to be innocent, still without accepting the specific charges we were accused of. We explained why we went in the Polytechnic. Some time after, when I was court-martialed in February of '98, I personally took responsibility for burning a Greek flag. I said that I burnt it. I consider it to be a symbol of a hostile force. With anyone having the Greek flag I see my enemy, because the policemen have it on their uniforms, and the marshals.... It is the symbol of the enemy.
Our purpose, within the anti-state and anticapitalist struggle, is to connect ourselves with the different social struggles. Our purpose also when interfering in these struggles is to attempt to take things to the edge, which means to culminate the conflict of these social parts with the state and the police. To urge the people fighting to transcend institutional frameworks--the trade- unions, the local administrations and all those manipulators who are enemies of human freedom. Many comrades of mine, with their small forces, were engaged in such struggles. I will tell you about them more specifically.
In 1989, in a struggle of environmental interest in the village of Aravissos, the resi
dents of the area didn't want their water sources to be exploited by the Water Company of Thessaloniki. They clashed with the police and the riot police, the burnt water pumps, set fires and built barricades.... And some of our comrades from Thessaloniki took part in this struggle and were even arrested.
In 1990 the aggression of neo-liberalism began in Greece (an aggression that internationally had begun in the '80s with the Reagan and Thatcher governments), including de-industrialization, workers' dismissals, privatization, restriction of the welfare state, reductions in salaries, pensions and medical treatment.... This attack that started in Europe and North America in the beginning of the '80s only started in 1990 in Greece.
The first project was the "problematic" companies. In that section also, during the period of 1990-91, there were occupations in many factories of the country--in Mantoudi, Lavrio, Patras. Again, some comrades of ours, with their small powers, were there. More specifically in Mantoudi and in the Piraiki-Patraiki factory which is located in Patras.
After that we have the pupils' movement of "90-91 which was a grand one in to my opinion. It managed to subvert the law of the Minister of Education Kontogiannopoulos, who finally resigned. The right-wing government, in its effort to repress the movement, had mobilized its thugs in order to smash the school occupations, resulting in the murder of a teacher, Nikos Temponeras, inside an occupied school in Patras. It was one more crime of the state. Here we will count the crimes of the state, no crime of mine.
Responding to the murder of Temponeras there was a demonstration of thousands of people. We participated too, to sharpen the situation. There were conflicts with the police, the Polytechnic was occupied once again for two days. Flames, barricades, damage.... There was also another crime those days, in the 10th of January "91. During the riots, tear-gas bombs thrown by the police caused a fire in the building of K. Marousi, a shopping-center in Panepistimiou street. Four people died there due to this fire. For this crime nobody has yet paid, nor did "justice" say anything. It was covered up.
One year after, in the summer of 1992, my comrades--not me personally but this doesn't matter--participated in the clashes around Votanikos central bus-station, when the government attempted to privatize Public Transports. There were conflicts between the workers and the police. Then, some workers in the Public Transports went to prison accused of sabotage. They were smashing private buses belonging to the ruffian owners who had bought them. There also, anarchists were present.
Before referring to the struggle in Strymonikos, I want to mention the most recent examples: the jobless teachers the previous year and the pupils' movement in the winter
of '98-'99. We were present there as well. A comrade who testified yesterday, Vasilis Evagelidis, tried to talk about it. He was arrested in the clashes that took place in January of '99 in a pupils' demonstration.
Generally, wherever there are disturbances, wherever there are conflicts we want to be involved--to subvert things. For us, this is not a crime. In a real sense, these disturbances are the "popular sovereignty" that professional politicians keep talking about. That's where freedom is expressed....
Now let's talk about the struggle of the people in Strymonikos. Long before I placed the bomb, other comrades had been in the villages. They had been talking with the people there. They had published a brochure about this revolt, about the clashes in October of 1996. But I will talk more specifically about the struggle in Strymonikos in a little while. First, I want to talk exclusively about the action.
To tell the truth, I was inspired to put this bomb for a specific reason: The people of the villages broke the usual limits by themselves. If it had been a struggle inside institutional frameworks--in the way that trade unions and local administrations try to keep these struggles restricted, if it was confined in a mild, harmless and nondangerous protest, maybe I wouldn't have done anything.
But the comrades up there in the villages--who are not anarchists, of course, but I don't care about that, they are citizens who also want their freedom--had exceeded every limit. They had conflicts with the police three times--on the 17th of October 1996, on the 25th of July '97 and on November 9 '98. They had set fire to police cars and vans of the riot police. They had burnt machinery belonging to TVX, they had invaded the mines of Olympiada and destroyed part of the installations. Some of them also made a kind of guerrilla war. In the nights, they were going out with guns, shooting in the air to frighten the policemen. And I thought, these people are cool. They've gone even further than us.
And then repression followed, especially in '97 when there was marshal law imposed in the area. The Chief of Police in Halkidiki gave an order according to which all gatherings and demonstrations were forbidden. They also sent special police units and police tanks, which came onto the streets for the first time since 1980. Now they were sending them out again in the villages of Halkidiki. So, I thought, we must do something here, in Athens. It is not possible that the others are under repression and we are here staying passive.
The ministry of Industry and Development, in Papadiamadopoulou and Michalakopoulou streets, was one of the centers of this case. The struggle in Strymonikos was a struggle against "development," against "modernization" and all this crap they keep proclaiming. What is hidden behind all these expressions is the profits of
multinationals, the profits of "our own" capitalists, Greek capitalists, the profits of states officials, of the Greek state, of the bureaucrats, of all those who take the money, of technical companies.... There is no relevance between this "development" and "modernization" they are talking about and the satisfaction of popular needs. No relevance at all.
So, I placed a bomb. The purpose was as I said in the letter with which I took responsibility for the action. In the passage of February '98 I said that in placing the explosive device my purpose was to send a double political message. Everything is political. Even if you use such means, the messages are political. War itself is a means of political pressure. In this case, this was also a political means, a political practice. First of all, a message to the people of Strymonikos that "you are not alone, there are also others who may live 600 km away from you but care." Not for personal reasons...I don't know anyone from there personally. Other comrades know people there. I haven't even been there. It was not my house that was threatened, but this is not the point.
Simply, my principle--and generally the principle of anarchists and of other non-anarchist revolutionaries--is that social freedom is one and inseparable. So, if freedom is partially offended, in essence it is offended as a whole. If their freedom is offended, mine is offended too. Their war will be my war, especially in an area where the "sovereign people"--again an expression used by professional politicians--does not want what the state and the capital want: the gold metallurgy of TVX.
On the other hand, I have said that, OK, there would be some damage--I knew that. Yes, I had the intention to cause material damages. So, what damage would that be? On the windows, on that certain place, what kind of damage? Or outside the storehouse where I placed the bomb? In my opinion the damages would be minimal. But even if they were more than minimal, for me it is not important at all. Because freedom can't be compared with the material damage of some windows, on a state car or state property. For me, the ministry is not an institution of common benefit as the charges say. Of state benefit yes, but of social benefit no.
However, even if the device did not explode, I sent my message. I was caught because I made that technical error and I left a fingerprint, but even if there was no material damage at all the message was sent. And you received it, the state received it, but also the people of Strymonikos received it. I know that they are saying I am one of them, even if they have never met me. There is nothing better than that. And of course, I repeat that I don't regret it at all.
I am a social revolutionary, and when you say that it is like talking for the benefit of society. Not like--it is for the social benefit. As I have this principle I couldn't harm any citizen. I could harm a policeman. I consider them my enemies. And you are my enemies too. I separate you. I make a clear class separation. On one hand we have those, on the other hand, we have the others. In this occasion though I intended to harm neither the policeman who guarded the ministry nor anybody else--and of course not a citizen.
The procedure that is used by groups or individuals in general is exactly this: you first place the bomb in your target and then you call to a newspaper. In this case, I called to Eleftherotypia and said: In half an hour a bomb will explode there. Exactly what is written in the evidence: "In 30 minutes there will be an explosion in the Ministry of Industry and Development, for the case of TVX in Strymonikos." By this sense, as it was proven practically and not hypothetically, the police arrived at the place in time. The first of them who went there surrounded and evacuated the area for 200 meters around the building, as the police specialists themselves admitted, so that there wouldn't be any car or person accidentally passing by. And then they waited for the bomb to explode. As they have already said, they were waiting for the safety time to expire, which is the 30 minutes that I had given! Whether the bomb would or wouldn't explode there was absolutely no danger for humans lives. In case that it exploded, there would be only material damages. So, it would happen exactly as was intended to happen. Objectively, if the device had exploded there was no chance of an accident, like exploding before or after the time given.
And exactly because of the message being political and symbolic, it was not in my purpose to cause extensive material damages; that's why I used a small quantity of dynamite. And I had the possibility to put five or seven or ten kilos if I had wanted to.... But I didn't. Since there were such things found in my house, I could have caused great damage, always talking about material damages! But I didn't. If I could have demolished the whole building of the ministry without having killed anyone, I wouldn't have any objection. It is another useless building for the people and for society. As I said before, the only thing I regret is the technical error on the device.
Now, I want to say something in advance. This action was performed only by me, I did it alone, there was nobody else. The message of course said "Anarchist Urban Guerrillas." This doesn't mean that there were other persons aside from me.... It was just an expression to imply which milieu I come from. Of course, I wouldn't use my name "Nikos Maziotis" to tell the newspaper where I placed the bomb. I'd say "Anarchists." That's all. I want to make it clear, finally, that the initiative for this action was mine only, there was neither a group nor an organization nor anything. And also, It doesn't appear even from the evidence that there was a group or an organization, that I would supply any group or organization. I was alone and the things found were only mine.
I want to refer more to what I call solidarity, to the motives that I had. What is this solidarity. I believe that people socialized-- that human society was created--based on three components: solidarity, mutuality and helping each other. That's what human freedom is based on. Any social group in struggle, in different space and time--whether they are pupils or farmers or citizens of local societies, for me and for anarchists is very important. It doesn't have to do with whether I am a worker and identifying my interests with the interests of that class. If someone asks for a higher salary or has a trade-unionist demand for me that is not important. For me, solidarity means the unreserved acceptance and support with every means of the right that the people must have to determine their lives as they wish, and not letting others to decide in default of them, like the state and the capital do.
That means that in this specific case, in the struggle of Strymonikos but also in every social struggle, for me what counts mostly is that they are struggles through which the people want to determine their fates alone. And not having any police chief or any state official or capitalist deciding what they should do. It is of secondary importance if they want or don't want the factory, if the focal point of the struggle is environmental. The important thing is that they don't want the factory because they don't like something imposed on them with violence.
Concerning the matter of political violence now, from the very beginning they tried to present a case of "repulsive criminals" and "terrorists" who "'blindly' placed bombs." Something that doesn't exist.
If theoretically terrorism is exercising violence against citizens and unarmed population, that goes exclusively for the state. Only the state attacks civilians. That's what the repression mechanisms are for: the riot police, special police units, the army, special forces...mechanisms that also rob the people. They finance armed professionals, policemen. Aren't they trained to shoot real targets? Aren't the riot police armed with chemical gas? To use them where? On citizens, in demonstrations and in manifestations. So, only the state exercises violence against citizens. I didn't use any violence against any citizen.
I will say exactly what terrorism is.
Terrorism is when occupations, demonstrations and strikes are being attacked. When the riot police attacked the pensioners who demonstrated outside Maximou four years ago. When Melistas killed Kaltezas. When Koumis and Kanelopoulou were murdered by the riot police in 16th of November 1980. And if I remember well, they were not shot, they were beaten to death. Terrorism is when Christos Kassimis was murdered. But I will refer more specifically to this case.
A group of revolutionaries had then tried to set fire to the German factory of AEG, in Redis. This was also an action of solidarity. I don't know if you are aware of that, but I will tell you about it. Then, in '77, some guerrillas of the RAF had died inside the white cells of Stammheim, in Stuttgart, West Germany. The white cells alone are terrorism. Prison is terrorism. So, then, some Greek revolutionaries went to burn the factory of AEG, as an action of solidarity with the RAF and also as a reaction to the murder of RAF militants in the prisons of Stuttgart. During this attempt, which was unsuccessful, somebody was killed. He was Christos Kassimis, shot by the two policemen, Plessas and Stergiou, who were guarding the factory. And according to what I have read, they didn't kill him because their lives where threatened, they shot him in the back. He died with a bullet in his back.
Terrorism is when special police forces invade the Chemistry School and beat up anarchists and youth. Terrorism is when Temponeras is murdered in Patras. Terrorism is when Christos Tsoutsouvis was murdered in '85. But this case also has something special and I want to point it out. To Christos Tsoutsouvis fits an expression of Thucydides-if you know about him, he is the ancient historian who wrote down the story of the Peloponnesian War--that "dying in the battle is an honor, followed by the acclaim of the citizenry." He may have been killed, but he also took three of them with him. For me, he was a warrior, a militant. I believe that society needs more persons like him.
Terrorism is when citizens are murdered by the police in simple "identification controls." I will mention some examples. I will tell about Christos Mouratis, a Rom in the city of Livadia, who was shot in a police blockade in October of 1996. He was an unarmed citizen. This is a crime. But "justice" did nothing about it, what would it do? It just rewarded the crime.
In 1997, Helias Mexis was passing by the street in front of the Transport Detention Center (for prisoners) and he was shot by the police guard Tsagrakos.
Theodoros Giakas was killed on January 10th 1994 by police officer Lagogiannis of the Moschato police station. This case is also quite peculiar. He was an unarmed citizen. He was stopped in the street for identity control. He ran away and the police shot him. Afterwards they said they found a knife in his possession and other crap. As far as I know, in the beginning he was shot three times. Probably all three shots were fatal. As Giakas was lying on the ground, Lagogiannis shot him another two times and even after that he handcuffed him! Are you aware of what "justice" did about it? Sentenced him to 12 years on probation. That's why I'm saying that your "justice" must be put in quotation marks.
Terrorism is when Ali Yumfraz, a Pomak from Vrilisia suburb of Athens, was arrested for being drunk and afterwards he was found dead in his cell in the police station. The police said he suffered a heart-attack and that this was the reason for his death. I can recall another incident, in January of '91, when a Turkish political refugee, Souleiman Akiar, was beaten to death by policemen. The Minister of Public Order had then said that the man had heart problems. But the medical examination found that there were bruises all over his body.
Terrorism is this court, here. Every trial of a militant, every trial of a revolutionary is terrorism, a message of intimidation for society. I said it before in my statement yesterday, when you called me to ask if I accept the charges, and I will repeat it. Because my persecution is political, the message is clear: whoever fights against the state and capital will be penalized, criminalized and characterized as a terrorist. The same for any solidarity with any social struggle: it will be penalized and crushed. This is the message of this trial and by this sense it is terrorism. Terrorism against me, terrorism against the anarchists, terrorism against the people of Strymonikos, who are also receiving similar messages during this period, as they have similar trials for their mobilizations. This is terrorism.
The fact that I put a bomb as an action of solidarity is not terrorism. Because no citizen was harmed by this action.
Many times, the media--sometimes even more than the police--promote a view of every action taking place (for example in molotov attacks) that "we almost had victims, almost, almost, almost...." But such a thing has never really happened. This is done to create impressions and these things are said so that there will be social consent for repression. So that I, for example, will be convicted with a long-term prison sentence. "We found someone who made the mistake of leaving his fingerprint. We caught him. And he says that he did it? Let's fuck him!" My language is a little vulgar.
I want to refer to the struggle in Strymonikos. Even if I have never been there I will give you some historical rudiments. The mines which have now been bought by the multinational company TVX Gold have existed since 1927. They used to belong to Bodosakis. In these mines, where numerous work accidents have taken place and many miners suffered pneumonokoniosis, there was a big bloody strike back in 1977. The strike had demands such as increases in wages, medical treatment, and security measures in the mines. At that time police tanks sent also sent into the area. There were arrests and convictions, with terrorism imposed in the villages.
In the late '80s the company was characterized as "problematic," like many others. The state, through METVA, planned the installation of gold metallurgy. In '92 the company, as "problematic," passed into the hands of the state and in December of '95 the latter sold the mines to TVX. But the residents of Strymonikos didn't want the construction of a gold metallurgy plant. More than seventy years of mining activity had already caused serious environmental problems.
This struggle has great importance, and that has been proven, for international reasons. The mobilizations started in the beginning of '96. The residents blockaded the national Thessaloniki-Kavala highway, they made guardhouses from which they supervised the mines and stopped any company truck that might try to pass or any machinery that would begin drilling activities. With these activities, the street blockade and the guardhouses, the people demonstrated: "We are here. You are not going to pass."
This way they forced the company to temporarily suspend its activities. On the 26th of October '96, TVX sent an ultimatum to the greek state and to the Ministry of Development, saying that "Unless the works start right now, we are going to leave." Their investment, which is the biggest private one ever made in the country, an investment of 65 billion drachmas, would leave Greece.
When the first clashes took place, on the 17th of October, and the residents managed to violently repel the police forces from the area, Jason Stratos, the president of SEV, stated that "these disturbances damage the integrity of the country abroad." And he was right, because "It's impossible that two thousand provincials (I don't mean this characterization in a bad way, but that's how the minister or the president of SEV mean it; that's how professional politicians and the political parties talk about simple people) will destroy our investments, not letting a Canadian company or any other foreign company come here and make investments. This reaction must end".
So, you can understand that this struggle had no restricted local character. It had international implications, because it created a precedent: "If we can't have an investment in Halkidiki, wherever a foreign investor may go it will not be able to proceed with the investment. If the people revolt and don't want what the state wants, the economy is through."
One year later, there was another attempt to start work for the installation of the gold metallurgy plant. In July of '97 the residents destroyed a drill belonging to IGME and clashed with the police. In November, they gathered and demonstrated at the mines. But some months before--in September, if I remember well--the state had predicted that the people's reactions would culminate and had sent hundreds of policemen from Thessaloniki. They had also sent riot police from Athens, special repression police units and police tanks, which as I said before appeared in the streets for the first time after 1980 when they were used to suppress demonstrations. There was a whole army of occupation installed there permanently. The police knew that there would be riots again so they had prepared a military force to repress the residents. As it happened, of course, it wasn't completely successful because the police were defeated in clashes that took place on the 9th of November. And as I have said before police cars and riot police vans were destroyed, the drill of the company was set on fire and finally guerrilla activities took place, in which shots were fired to frighten the police.
As I have already said, I was very much inspired by these events to put the bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development. On this base I want to repeat that this struggle had no simple local character. It had transcended that.
For us, for the anarchists, social struggles and solidarity are beyond national limits. For me and for my comrades, struggles that take place outside the borders of the Greek state have a great importance.
There is huge importance for me in the Zapatista guerrilla that has burst out in Chiapas in 1994. It is one more struggle against neoliberalism, a struggle that is carried out with guns, with masks, a real war. It involves political violence and I am not against that. I have never made any statement against it and I do not want to pretend to be innocent.
Of great importance for me is also the movement of Brazilian farmers without land (the MST) who occupy the land of the estates in order to cultivate it collectively.
There is also great significance in the movement of the jobless people in France, who made occupations in working offices and clashed with the police during the winter of '97-'98.
Also important is something that took place in Turkey and that is similar with what happened in Strymonikos with TVX. Another multinational company, EUROGOLD, tried to make a comparable investment in Pergamos. And it is very important what I am going to say now. It was in the village Ovancik of Pergamos, if I remember correctly. The residents of that area, Turkish farmers, successfully frustrated the EUROGOLD investment, in the same ways that the people of Strymonikos have used to so far prevent the installation of gold metallurgy. The people of Pergamos made blockades in the Ismir-Istanbul highway. They clashed with military police forces. And, coincidentally, there was again someone who placed a bomb in the offices of the investing company, in Ismir. Like I did here.
So, as you understand, all these practices are part of social struggles, they happen everywhere. And for us, not only are they not crimes, but they are an honor. We are proud of these practices.
Concerning this factory in Pergamos, the Greek media, the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Aegean had been hypocritically saying that if it was constructed it would pollute the Aegean sea. But they are not saying the same for Strymonikos Bay. So the factory in Turkey must not be constructed, but in Greece it is all right. Here the hypocrisy of the Greek state, of the media and of the politicians is obvious.
I don't believe that you really judge me as a "terrorist." I don't believe that you judge me for "having the purpose to cause danger to human lives." This is just a pretext. In fact, you are judging me for what I've said until now. For who I am. For being an anarchist, for believing what I believe, even for my past. Because all of these are aggravating elements: "So, you were in the Polytechnic occupation, you were in the Economic School occupation, you are an objector to military service, you were here and there...." I don't have a "previous decent life," according to you, of course, because according to me I am a very decent person. In reality, you don't judge me for supposedly having the purpose of harming people.
In fact, the state has proven that it does not care for the citizens. On the contrary, when its domination must be consolidated, the state takes away human lives, as I have said in the examples I gave before. The only thing the state wants is to conserve a monopoly, the monopoly that "Only I, the state, can take away human lives."
Only the uniformed police, the secret police, the riot police or the special police can take away human lives. Everyone else who does it is a criminal. But when the state does it, it proves to be unassailable.
Whenever citizens were killed, "justice" has accepted the police allegations. Not because it believed them but for reasons of interest. It always accepts the allegation that "the bullet lost its way," that supposedly "the policeman's gun had accidentally fired," or that he was supposed to be "in legal defense." In reality though, all these examples that I mentioned before, and I have more to mention, are cold-blooded murders. Very few policemen were ever accused and all of them are out of prison and proud of what they have done. Proud!
A witness for my defense said something before about the case of Alekos Panagoulis. And it is true that the attempt of Panagoulis to murder the dictator Papadopoulos was an action applauded by the Greek people. It was an attempt to kill. And so what? Who did he try to kill? A dictator!
Rationally one can oppose the argument that back then there was a status of military junta and that the means of political violence were justified to be used as a means of political pressure in the time of dictatorship, but now we have a "parliamentary democracy." Now we have "freedom" and we have "rights." Well, I don't think it is exactly like that. With all I've said I don't believe there are rights. They may exist on paper, but in reality there is nothing.
I will mention certain occasions of the political reform period, the time of the presumed democracy, where people have been killed within social struggles. It was once again proven that the people still don't define their fate just because the constitution of the state changed in 1974. Specific examples: The first disturbances took place, as far as I remember, in July of 1975. Also in May of 1976 for one more time the police tanks appeared in the streets of Athens. Laskaris, the minister of Employment of Karamanlis' government had then made a new law, Act 330, an anti-worker and anti-strike act. On the 25th of May '76 there was an all- workers' demonstration.
There were clashes with the police, an assault at the offices of "Bradini" newspaper..., molotov cocktails and fire... Then, a police tank which was chasing after demonstrators killed Anastasia Tsivika, a 67 year old saleswoman. Nobody was ever accused of this murder.
In other cases, there were new drafts of laws voted in the parliament without asking anybody's opinion. For example in 1990 there was a revision of the agreement considering the continuation of the American military base operations in Greece. The people of Chania did not accept that... In June of 1990 they had a demonstration which was attacked by the riot police. As a reaction, the people clashed with the police and burnt down the Prefecture of Chania.
In 1991 the farmers of Heraklion province set fire to the building of the Heraklion Prefecture. As you can see, political violence is exercised by everyone. By all of society and by every social segment or class that is threatened.
What the state wants is to deal with everyone alone. You must have heard an expression that Prime Minister Simitis is using a lot, speaking of "social automatism" whenever social reactions burst out. He uses this expression in order to present these social reactions--the blockades in the streets, the squatting in public buildings and all the actions of this kind--as being in contrast with the interests of the rest of society. Something that is a total lie. It is just the tactics of "divide and rule," which means "Spread discord to break solidarity." Because solidarity is very important as anyone who is alone becomes an easy target.
When a workers' strike takes place and there is no solidarity it is easier to attack. They talk about a "minority." This is the argument of the state, that it is "a union minority having retrogressive interests which turn against modernization, against development, against all reforms," and all that nonsense. Well, there hasn't been one social segment or social group that hasn't come in conflict with the state--especially during the '90s, and that hasn't been faced with the argument that "You are just a minority," that "Your struggle is in contrast with the rest of society's interests."
That is exactly what happened in all cases. It happened with the workers in the "problematic" companies who were squatting their factories in '90-'91, with the pupils who occupied their schools in '90-'91 and recently in '98-'99. The same thing happened with the workers in Public Transport in '92, with the farmers who blockaded the national highways in '95 and in '96, with the teachers' mobilizations against the repeal of the calendar and the new exam. The same thing happened of course with the people of Strymonikos.
What is really being attacked is solidarity. And that's what is also attacked--without any disguise--through my trial. The state wants to attack everyone alone. Because when it finds them together things are much more difficult.
Police brutality is, of course, not sufficient for repression. Coming back to what I was saying before, I have concluded with the fact that the difference between dictatorship and parliamentary democracy--or should I better say capitalistic oligarchy--is that the first one is mainly imposed by raw violence and the latter, the presumed democracy, is mostly imposed by the intellectual control of the citizens, through the weapon of the mass media, through deception. Because I don't believe that people voting for their bosses every four years means they have their freedom. They vote for them but when they're not doing what they were elected to do, people can't get rid of them.
In ancient Athens this didn't happen. In ancient Athens everyone could speak in the public assembly. Anyone could express an opinion, no matter how modest his position was. And those having a public position could be removed by the people at any time.
But democracy has also proven that when deception and intellectual control of the citizens are not enough, it has no problem resorting to police violence, killing, torture and terror.
Finally, I am not on trial because I placed a bomb, nor because I possessed three guns and ten kilograms of dynamite. After all, the army and the police have a lot more guns than me and they use them. The one can't be compared with the other.
I have nothing else to say. The only thing I'll say more is that no matter what the penalty to which I will be sentenced--because it is certain that I will be convicted--I am not going to repent anything. I will remain who I am. I can also say that prison is always a school for a revolutionaries. His ideas and the endurance of his soul are experienced. And if he passes this test he becomes stronger and believes more in the things for which he was put in prison. I have nothing more to say.
The judge: Don't turn the cameras to the bench!
Public prosecutor: In the beginning of your plea you said that you had the guns for war. Don't you see a contradiction when you say that there was no danger for human lives?
I made clear that none of my activities is turned against citizens. I already made that clear. Where is the contradiction?
Public Prosecutor: You said the guns are for war.
Yes but not for the people. For my class enemies. Look, I never said that I am a humanist generally. Nor a philanthropist, because the meanings of these words are degraded. In everything that I've written--if you have read--and in everything that I've said I made clear who are my friends and who are my enemies. Not on a personal but on a social level. Who are my social and class friends and who are my social and class enemies. In the letter with which I took responsibility for the action as well as in my defense I said that society is another thing from the state.
I will go on to be more specific for the jury. On the one hand I place the state, state officials, the police, the army, the security forces, capitalists, and on the other hand I place the rest of the people: workers, farmers, pupils, the whole of society, the majority of the people, the oppressed people.
Public prosecutor: You talked about "justice" putting the word in quotation marks. What ground for complaint do you have against justice?
I have been in prison for the last 18 months. I have personally stayed in prison for 18 months and another 7 months in military prison. Simple and close examples. You are speaking of me, personally, are't you?
These laws are made in order to suit your interests. From these laws you are earning your bread. Your job is to send citizens to prison and to oppose the argument that policemen have committed murders but don't go to prison for it. I have already criticized the job of this "justice" you are talking about. That finally there are two weights and two measures. The matter is not what the law says or what the penal code says, but what really happens. Just like in the case of terrorism.
For example, the US consider PKK to be a terrorist organization, but not UCK. In the beginning UCK was considered, by the US, a terrorist organization but afterwards it wasn't because its existence was convenient for their plans. Isn't that right? The US did not consider Contras to be terrorists, when they were going to invade Nicaragua, but they considered all the left revolutionary movements and guerrillas terrorists.
Public prosecutor: I will refer to the danger you said something about. Didn't you know that the bomb could cause danger?
If I knew? I knew that it would not cause any danger. The procedure is stereotyped and it goes exactly like that: you make a telephone call to a newspaper for warning, then somebody from the newspaper informs the police, the police arrive at the place and blockade the area surrounding the target. In my case, they did blockade the area and the police specialists in neutralizing explosive devices who were then present have already testified that the blockade was safe for a range of 200 meters. So there was no danger for human lives. For material damages now, I told you my opinion about them....
I want to complete what I was saying before to the public prosecutor, about terrorism on an international level. In reality, for this moment, the US are the global gendarmery and terrorists, as the only great world power left. Which means it is the worst thing on earth. And according to our perception--as anarchists--the state, all the states and all the governments are antisocial, terrorist mechanisms, since they have organized armies, police, and hired torturers.
I also want to complete what I was saying about having two weights and two measures. For example, the US provides weapons, financing and instigating every dictatorial regime all over the world. And in Greece as well. In Latin America, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru.... This is terrorism. Terrorism is to arm dictators, to arm death squads in Argentina or in Bolivia in order to kill people of the left, citizens, revolutionaries. Those who equip the death squads to torture, those are the terrorists.
Terrorism is when they bombard Yugoslavia for ten days, killing civilians....
Excuse me, Mr. prosecutor, but the US is the one which pronounces who is terrorist and who isn't. Its State Department issues official directions, advising Greece about who is a terrorist. In this period of time, it places pressure on the Greek state to make an anti-terrorist law, a model of law which will criminalize those who fight, making laws more draconian than those already existing. This is terrorism.
The revolutionaries and militants are not terrorists. The terrorists are the states themselves. But with this accusation, with this stigmatizing (as terrorism) all the states and governments try to criminalize the social revolutionaries and militants inside their countries--the internal social enemy. In fact, the state, "justice" and the police face me also as this kind of enemy. As an internal social enemy. On the basis of the division I described before. That's the way the state sees it. This is what is ventured in this trial.
Public prosecutor: What do you have to oppose to what exists?
Social revolution. By any means necessary.
It is generally proven, because I am well versed in Greek as well as in international social and political history, that never did any changes happen, never did humanity meet any progress--progress as I conceive it--through begging, praying or with mere words.
In the text I sent to take responsibility for the action in which I said that I placed the bomb and which was published in Eleftherotypia newspaper, I said that the social elite, the mandarins of capital, the bureaucrats, all these useless and parasitic people--who should disappear from the proscenium of history--will never quit their privileges through a civilized discussion, through persuasion. I don't want to have a discussion because you can't have a discussion with this kind of people...
I would like to add something. Precisely because I have studied a lot, (I know that) during the events of July of '65, a conservative congressman of the National Radical Union came out and said about those who went into the streets and caused disturbances when Petroulas was killed, that "Democracy is not the red tramps but we, the participants in parliament," which means the congressmen who are well paid.
I will reverse that. Popular sovereignty, sir judges, is when molotovs and stones are thrown at the police, when state cars, banks, shopping centers and luxury stores are burnt down. This is how the people react. History itself has proven that this is the way people react.
This is popular sovereignty. When Maziotis goes and places a bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development in solidarity with the struggle of the people in Strymonikos. This is the real popular sovereignty and not what the Constitution says.
I forgot to commemorate militants who have been murdered. Christoforos Marinos was murdered in the port of Piraeus, inside the ship "Pegasus" in July of '96. Michalis Prekas was murdered by the Special Police Units in October of 1987 in Kalogreza. Tsironis was murdered in Nea Smyrni in 1978.
I also want to add something concerning to what Mr. Prosecutor said yesterday, during his speech, on the matter of humanism.
I will mention an event that happened abroad, to prove who are humanists and who aren't after all, who are the real criminals.
The Tupac Amaru guerrillas occupied the Japanese embassy of Peru in December of 1996. They took more than a hundred hostages and these hostages were not just citizens. There were ambassadors, diplomats from many states, Japanese businessmen and officials of the Peruvian regime--which is quite far from being democratic. They were demanding the freedom of their militants, the release of their organization's leader and of other comrades of theirs who were imprisoned in dungeons.
Not only didn't they hurt any one of the hostages but they even released almost all of them--that is to say who are really the humanists. On the contrary, after endless and exhausting negotiations, the Peruvian special forces invaded the embassy and executed every one of them in cold blood. I tell all that in order that we know who are the criminals and who are the "humanists"--in quotation marks, because I don't like this term and that's why I don't use it a lot.
I want also to mention some things that happened here in Greece. I want to speak for Charis Temperekidis, who may not have been a political militant, but for me he was a rebelling penal prisoner. He had been kept in prison for years. He also died with his gun in hand during a chase after the robbery of the Agricultural Bank in Klitoria, Achaia. Despite the fact that he was still alive when caught by the police, he didn't inform against his accomplices. In the past he had taken part in prisoners' revolts, like the one of 1987 in Kerkyra in order to close this place of punishment.
And there is one more case--if we want to discuss crimes once more, the case of Sorin Matei. When Matei kept a policeman as hostage, the police didn't make any move to arrest him. When Matei took civilians as hostages, the police couldn't care less about their lives. In order to strengthen their prestige the police invaded the apartment where Matei had taken shelter, resulting in the death of a young woman. The criminals were more the policemen of the special units than Sorin Matei. As criminal as the manager of Nikaia general hospital, Alexiou, who ordered the transportation of Matei to the prison hospital Agios Pavlos, where he died either from the beating he suffered by policemen or by the drugs they were given to him. That explains who is criminal.
I am into the copy and paste.
So sounds like Amnesty International should pick up the tab for developing PGP. I mean, I grant you, I think that PGP is a wonderful product and I'd like for network associates to keep it, but they are a business and if it's not making money for them, there's no reason for them to keep it around.
Personally I use GPG and think it works wonderfully, and Network Associates has nothing to do with that. May not have some of the bells and whistles of the full commercial PGP but it still does what PGP has always done, encrypt e-mail. Organizations like AI should be able to function fine with just that.
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SLASHDOT USER 1: Fuckin' MPAA, man.
SLASHDOT USER 2: Totally.
SLASHDOT USER 1: Fuckin' fascists, tryin' to bring us down.
SLASHDOT USER 2: Yeah... they want to take away our fuckin' civil rights. Jack Valenti is such a fuckin' bastard.
SLASHDOT USER 1: Word.
SLASHDOT USER 2: Word.
SLASHDOT USER 1: So, how about that new TRON DVD?
SLASHDOT USER 2: Fuckin' cool, man.
SLASHDOT USER 1: Hey... what were we talking about?
SLASHDOT USER 2: Dunno. Wanna go see THE TIME MACHINE?
SLASHDOT USER 1: Sure.
SLASHDOT USER 2: Cool.
SLASHDOT USER 1: Fuckin' MPAA, man.
SLASHDOT USER 2: Totally.
PGP has always suffered from "realities." It suffered for a while from the US export "laws." It suffered for a while from RSA wanting to be able to cash-in on it's patent used in PGP v1. Now the reality is that the most mature GUI is abandon-ware but there is a "solution" of Apple or HP stepping in. Come on!! Apple and HP are themselves committing to the act of promoting a strong but small following and then abanding them. There was talk of IBM or Sun saving HP OpenMail. How is the "saving solution" for PGP any more practicle than the saving solution which never came to be for HP OpenMail? Because there is a PGP alliance? Hey! Come on! Even the alliance suffers from realities. They claim to be unbias in promoting OpenPGP implimentations but only the "true blue" implimentations of PGP get to make it on the OpenPGP Resources->Downloads page. Why isn't OpenPGP unbias enough to consider GPG as an OpenPGP Resources->Download? Could it be that OpenPGP is not unbias? The reality is this, NAI is does not care about it's past customers just it's future ones. The reality is that OpenPGP is not unbias group looking to help other OpenPGP implimentations but a puppet group of Zimmerman to try to keep his specific pet project implimentation alive. I think NAI PGP should die out as the sell-out close project that it was and "Open"PGP alliance can go with it, only then when these hidden agenda groups are done with can we get enough signal to noise for improving/maturing GPG.
While we're at it, why don't we buy the Montreal Expos
Beer wants to be free
It's true that currently GPG's user interface is terrible for beginning users if they have to use it directly. So, clearly, you want to use programs that embed GPG (like Evolution). Also, note that the German government is funding further development of GPG. They specifically say that their funding will be used to make GPG more usable by less experienced users, including porting the software to other operating systems, developing graphical user interfaces (GUI) and writing a handbook.
Thus, this sounds like a short-term problem at worst.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
It's like saying if Microsoft or Netscape decided to stop relasing browsers, then the entire WWW is doomed, when there's still Konquerer, Opera, Mozilla, and the whole W3C standards body, etc...
... at best of dubious value. They set the standards on which the web was built, but in the last year they seem to have shifted their purpose. The acceptance of patented "standards", e.g., is totally unacceptable. A patent is a grant of control over an expression of an idea, and increasingly over the idea itself. So the recent W3C activity is a total denial of publically accessible standards, to the extent that I won't use the word to describe their proposals. It is as if PGP (well, Network Associates) had first ensured that nobody else could create any implementation of a secure protocol, and THEN withdrew their package.
This was a lot better before you included the W3C. Many of their recent activities have been
If you delete the reference to the W3C, then your point is quite valid.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The Windows version of PGP was pretty nice and actually hooked in with MS Exchange and other software. No I never actually used it, I specified that communications between my group and a shop we were contracting out to be encrypted with PGP. I used GPG with Linux and they went with the happy windows user interface. Most managers and probably the majority of developers will want to use the Windows version if forced to use the encryption software (By some asshole like me pointing out that transmitting the source code in the clear is a violation of corporate security policies ;-)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Context is so overrated :)
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then a)it has no value, and you have nothing to lose by giving it away, say, to the FSF, OR b) you can't find the value in it, and so maybe you should let someone else have a crack at it. (Add suggestions for 'someone else' as you see fit, but, of course, my vote goes to Phil.
part of the problem is that the IDEA algorithm is licensed technology from the Swiss company that owns the patent.
What PGP needs is a pluggable-encryption component, so that it could leverage something like AES
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
Really, if "they've" already compromised the system to the point where you have to worry about the libraries being secure, you've got bigger problems on your hands than the libraries being secure. The only thing the lack of a library is contributing to is a hampering of programmers incorporating GPG natively into everything from E-Mail clients to network protocols.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think what he was saying (or should phrase it like) is that the government should not offer protections of 'intellectual property' to those who do not market/sell/use it.
With a large enough gun, any piece of physical property can be defended. Governments exist to keep us from needing guns to do that.
Intellectual property can ONLY be defended with the use of the government. By removing this government protection from IP that is not used, the market is MORE laise-fare(sp), not less.
Now, if the government were to take an active roll, such as disseminating IP that is not used, that would be wrong.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Maybe PGP shouldn't be saved. Read this: A critique of Phil Zimmermann and PGP Travis Hadley There are two initial critiques of the haphazard distribution of a functional and simple to use version of RSA or any strong encryption. Assume the use of the terms PGP, strong encryption, and encryption are interchangeable unless otherwise specified. I will argue against Phil Zimmermann's position that free and open distribution of easy to use strong encryption is good and beneficial in the long run for humanity. I will also reflect on the futility of trying to restrict the use of strong encryption. Then questions of encryption policy will be discussed. Zimmermann argues for PGP along two lines. First that strong encryption is a tool for freedom fighters, humanitarian groups, and other groups that face repression of and punishment for their speech. Second that people should have the right to use strong encryption to keep their government at bay. Zimmermann's belief that only valid groups will use strong cryptography is false. Furthermore this discussion brings in the question of what makes a group valid? This will finally show that the use of strong encryption ultimately leads to lawbreakers becoming more brazen as they use strong cryptography because they know their communications will be secure thus eliminating some key evidence needed to prosecute various parts of the apparatus. Zimmermann maintains that strong encryption is good because it is a tool for groups that need security for their communications because the government under which they live, which they may be fighting, wants to monitor, punish, and ultimately halt their communications. Such groups would be freedom fighters fighting "a really horrible government" [1], human rights groups documenting atrocities, and groups who may be politically oppressed or closely monitored such as leftist groups were in the United States in the early Cold War period or followers of Falun Gong in China. The prospect that not so good groups such as the right-wing paramilitary forces of Columbia or al Qaeda cells abroad may use strong cryptography is very great. The use of computers by terrorist groups is well documented. One such example by al Qaeda is in planning a bombing: "A computer used by top al-Qaeda chiefs contains a report of a scouting mission" [3]. Furthermore the terrorists used some kind of security mechanisms, showing they are aware and eager to use all such resources: "The computer...has finally had its secrets cracked after high-tech computer programs broke through its complex password protection system." [3]. Besides evidence of its use, we can assume that any suspect groups who need their communications to be secret will use strong encryption. Why does this matter? Because if their communications are intercepted or their equipment is seized, law enforcement may not be able to break the security of the messages, and vital information that could save lives would be lost. The problem with praising free and open encryption's use by "good" groups is that the definition of "good" is relative. Phil Zimmermann may think that Burmese rebels are "good": The resistance groups in Burma are using it. Burma has a really horrible government, and there's resistance groups using PGP in jungle training camps. They're being trained to use it on portable computers. Then they are taking them to other jungle training camps and teaching them. [1] But what if we replace "The resistance groups in Burma are" with "Hamas is", replace "Burma" with "Israel", and "jungle" with "desert"? If we pretend that is what Zimmermann said, then suddenly some may find his remarks very offensive and not a very good support of easily available strong encryption. The key is that Hamas believes they themselves are as justified as the Burmese rebels believe themselves to be. There is no international arbiter of justice; as Kenneth Waltz would say political groups exist in a "self-help" system. So Zimmermann's opinions are just that. His opinions won't help the Burmese rebels or Hamas obtain what they believe is justice. However both will try, and one of the tools they will use is strong encryption. So although Zimmermann's intentions may be good, he cannot guarantee that only "just" groups will use his software, because groups cannot be easily categorized as "just" and "unjust". What we do know about organizations is that they behave similarly in an anarchic world - to preserve and propagate themselves and their goals. Because all organizations have an interest in security, "good" and "bad" organizations will develop an understanding of what encryption can provide. If your keys (basically passwords) are managed properly, then encryption can secure your immediate communications and your records of past communications. If someone in a group, whether an Amnesty International observer in Algeria or a mobster in Philadelphia, decides to secure their communications then theoretically for the next few hundred years or so the information will be out of the reach of prosecutors. Let us explore the mobster example. Imagine a criminal emails his associates to discuss the next hit, or some fraudulent scheme. This email may implicate many people well enough to send them to prison, such as the godfather, hit men, business associates who are aware of the crimes, etc. If this email is strongly encrypted, all this evidence is lost. It can be assumed that as strong encryption is used more and more by shady groups of all kinds, they will develop protocols and procedures for keeping as much communication as secret as possible for the purpose of cutting ties and prosecutable relationships. So the availability of easy to get and easy to use strong encryption software will lead to illegal organizations using the software to make themselves more resilient to arrests and less susceptible to prosecution. It will also make it extremely hard to get reliable information about terrorist activities, as the only source of information then becomes interrogation, which we know can be defeated with discipline and devotion to one's cause. All groups whether good or bad will use encryption to hide their communications. Zimmermann cannot even clearly point to a universal standard of good or bad, so he knows all groups, whether humanitarian or terrorist will use strong encryption. Groups that learn to incorporate encryption into their procedures will as a result learn to use encryption to make their group's future plans unknowable, their relations unaccountable, and individual members harder to prosecute. Zimmermann's argument that freedom of encryption will provide a powerful deterrent to government oppression is incorrect. Encryption does not provide a meaningful service to citizens. It has only lead to criminals and terrorists having easier access to the technology - citizens of any countries rarely use it. Zimmermann argues along similar lines of the following argument. If only the government is allowed to have guns, then the government can oppress the people. Furthermore criminals will get guns from elsewhere or on the black market, and then they will be able to harass the people and attack the government. Therefore allow the people to have guns as well to defend themselves against government oppression and criminal harassment. This argument works for material things that affect material safety. Examples would be guns among citizens, nuclear weapons between superpowers, and walking in groups at night in unfamiliar places. The basic argument is that one-to-one material deterrents are valid and successful. If you can deter someone with a gun, a nuclear weapon, or group from attacking you, then you have successfully provided material safety. Furthermore the means for protecting yourself are material objects. Information is not a material object. People assume privacy; they do not assume their information is at risk. Encryption is a non-substantive thing; it is mathematical and therefore confined to the mind. Who does the use or possession of encryption deter? According to Zimmermann: Advances in technology will not permit the maintenance of the status quo, as far as privacy is concerned. The status quo is unstable. If we do nothing, new technologies will give the government new automatic surveillance capabilities that Stalin could never have dreamed of. The only way to hold the line on privacy in the information age is strong cryptography. [2] Zimmermann believes strong encryption will deter the government from trying to get information. This is false because the government will still try and succeed, using other methods. An example is this. Imagine a thief who wishes to come into your home in a so-called "home invasion" and take your possessions of value. If you have a shotgun under your bed, you can do something about it. However if the government wants information about you or wants to prosecute you, they will succeed because they have domestic jurisdiction. So what if you slow them down by encrypting your email? You still haven't stopped them from talking to your neighbors, wiretapping your phone, opening your mail, seizing your handwritten notes such as journals, using listening devices to record your speech in your home and elsewhere, et cetera. The widespread use of strong encryption does not lead to less government investigation or legal harassment. The government has de jure right to gather information in whatever way a judge has provided warrant to do. One example is the FBI's development of a key logging system called Magic Lantern to get passwords [4]. The FBI used a "keystroke logging device on the computer of Nicodemo S. Scarfo Jr., hoping to record a password for a file encrypted with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software" [5]. So the FBI will not be deterred from getting your secrets if they want them. Other projects like Tempest [6], Echelon [7], and Carnivore [8] guarantee the government's ability to capture communications. This same principle applies to all other governments, valid or not. Using encryption does not in any way legally or functionally prevent a government from investigating or harassing its citizens. The ill effect of Zimmermann's belief that strong encryption software is necessary to healthy domestic political freedom is that the technology "blows across the border like dandelion seeds blowing in the wind" [1]. I personally do not believe strong encryption would have been put into use by criminals and terrorists had easy to use and easy to get products not been released. Yes the information is available - books and papers on strong encryption are available online, at libraries, at universities, and at bookstores all over the world and have been for decades. But it is one thing for a quiet mathematician to read about encryption; it is far more damaging to release an implementation of the theory into the wild. Had PGP and similar software never been released, I doubt anyone but researchers and national security ministries would have been interested in strong encryption. Militaries, governments, and corporations have always (at least as far back as ancient Rome) used cryptography to hide their intentions should their message bearers be captured. The important point here is that Governments and corporations can afford to hire mathematicians and computer specialists to create, implement, and manage cryptographic solutions. Small terrorist cells certainly don't have the money to hire these people, and I doubt that the mafia or terrorists would ever think to even try to get a hold of cryptography if it had stayed an academic curiosity only put into practice by foreign ministers communicating with their ambassadors or businessmen sending sensitive messages. I have seen the reports validating this argument, but do not currently have a reference, so I will appeal to your common sense and experience. Who do you know that doesn't work at a university and isn't a computer specialist that regularly uses encryption technology to encrypt their emails, instant message conversations, and personal files on their computer? Excluding computer specialists, I know none. I doubt there are very many people out there using encryption who aren't also privacy or civil liberties buffs and who don't work in a computer related field. My point is that common people don't care about PGP or encryption. It just isn't important and taking the time to learn about it and use would be non-productive. The meaning of this argument is that even though Zimmermann may think encryption provides privacy from the government, no one cares. Nearly no one in his target audience uses his software. However it seems that many outside his target audience were enabled by Zimmermann to make their illegal operations more secure. Zimmermann's belief that encryption will help citizens keep their government at bay is false. The government will not be deterred from trying to gather information just because one avenue of data is not available. Encryption was probably not even on the radar screens of anyone except government, corporations, and researchers until the public release of strong encryption software in the early 1990s. Few citizens use strong encryption to protect their communications, but criminals seem to have taken to it handily. Trying to restrict the flow of information once it has become public or widespread seems to never work, and in fact possibly encourages the spread even more. Currently books, papers, and software about encryption are all freely available to people all over the world. Zimmermann argues that this is a good thing. One thing is for sure; the methods are mathematical and sometimes simple. Many encryption schemes can be thought up by amateurs that will provide valid security. And even if all the books and records of encryption in the world were burned, it would still be possible to redevelop the technology from nothing. Not even advanced mathematics would be necessary, although it would help. Trying to control or restrict cryptography software is a fantasy. It can only be fought with advancements in cryptanalysis, but even then there is a known time limitation unless technology or mathematics advances rapidly. One hope lies in key problems - many pieces of software are careless with their keys and should the system be compromised in another way the keys can be salvaged. On the whole strong encryption software is widespread and will remain so. A question of policy arises. I concede strong encryption now cannot be stopped. But perhaps we can learn from our past actions. Why are books explaining strong cryptography sold in bookstores and available online for free? Why is computer cryptography taught at universities and some community colleges? Why were mathematicians allowed to develop a technology that inevitably would lead to a more chaotic world? These questions boil down to the value the world society places on absolute academic freedom. In the west information is held to be sacred, as can be seen in the "freedom of speech" clauses in many nation's constitutions. But most of those constitutions were drafted in a different time, when science was not so advanced that it's development seriously endangered human survival as a whole. Perhaps today with a more knowledgeable perspective we must review what types of speech should be protected, not just what types are protected by the current legal framework. Zimmermann and other's free implementations of cryptography have done little to improve the lives of common citizens, but have done much to improve and secure the operations of oppressed or clandestine groups. The problems lies in the fact that the New York mafia could be considered oppressed by the FBI and that al Qaeda believes they are oppressed by America. So although supposed "good" oppressed groups like humanitarians and activists have benefited, society at large has been adversely affected by the increased capabilities of supposed "bad" groups. Encryption is just a tool, neither good nor evil, but it has gravitated towards those who would use it for the latter. Sources: [1] "Interview with author of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)". Russell D. Hoffman. http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hightech/philspgp. htm
[2]
"Why I Wrote PGP". Phil Zimmermann.
http://www.philZimmermannn.com/essays-WhyIWrotePGP .shtml
[3]
"Al-Qaeda
computer details shoe bomber scouting mission". Hugh Dougherty.
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/Weekly2002/01.15.200 2/UnitedStates5.htm
[4]
"Judge
OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing". Declan McCullagh. http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,49455,00.ht ml
[5]
"Federal
judge okays keyboard stroke capture". George A. Chidi.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/01/04/ 020104hncapture.xml
[6] "NSA/CSS
REG 90-6" (TEMPEST
FOIA Request). NSA.
http://cryptome.org/nsa-reg90-6.htm
[7] "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Echelon". ACLU.
http://www.aclu.org/echelonwatch/faq.html
[8]
"The Carnivore FOIA Litigation". Electronic Privacy Information Center.
http://www.epic.org/privacy/carnivore/
I
personally support free and open strong encryption software and information, I
just wrote this article because it is clear there are some adverse affects to
encryption use that must be considered.
Maybe PGP shouldn't be saved. Read this: A critique of Phil Zimmermann and PGP Travis Hadley There are two initial critiques of the haphazard distribution of a functional and simple to use version of RSA or any strong encryption. Assume the use of the terms PGP, strong encryption, and encryption are interchangeable unless otherwise specified. I will argue against Phil Zimmermann's position that free and open distribution of easy to use strong encryption is good and beneficial in the long run for humanity. I will also reflect on the futility of trying to restrict the use of strong encryption. Then questions of encryption policy will be discussed. Zimmermann argues for PGP along two lines. First that strong encryption is a tool for freedom fighters, humanitarian groups, and other groups that face repression of and punishment for their speech. Second that people should have the right to use strong encryption to keep their government at bay. Zimmermann's belief that only valid groups will use strong cryptography is false. Furthermore this discussion brings in the question of what makes a group valid? This will finally show that the use of strong encryption ultimately leads to lawbreakers becoming more brazen as they use strong cryptography because they know their communications will be secure thus eliminating some key evidence needed to prosecute various parts of the apparatus. Zimmermann maintains that strong encryption is good because it is a tool for groups that need security for their communications because the government under which they live, which they may be fighting, wants to monitor, punish, and ultimately halt their communications. Such groups would be freedom fighters fighting "a really horrible government" [1], human rights groups documenting atrocities, and groups who may be politically oppressed or closely monitored such as leftist groups were in the United States in the early Cold War period or followers of Falun Gong in China. The prospect that not so good groups such as the right-wing paramilitary forces of Columbia or al Qaeda cells abroad may use strong cryptography is very great. The use of computers by terrorist groups is well documented. One such example by al Qaeda is in planning a bombing: "A computer used by top al-Qaeda chiefs contains a report of a scouting mission" [3]. Furthermore the terrorists used some kind of security mechanisms, showing they are aware and eager to use all such resources: "The computer...has finally had its secrets cracked after high-tech computer programs broke through its complex password protection system." [3]. Besides evidence of its use, we can assume that any suspect groups who need their communications to be secret will use strong encryption. Why does this matter? Because if their communications are intercepted or their equipment is seized, law enforcement may not be able to break the security of the messages, and vital information that could save lives would be lost. The problem with praising free and open encryption's use by "good" groups is that the definition of "good" is relative. Phil Zimmermann may think that Burmese rebels are "good": The resistance groups in Burma are using it. Burma has a really horrible government, and there's resistance groups using PGP in jungle training camps. They're being trained to use it on portable computers. Then they are taking them to other jungle training camps and teaching them. [1] But what if we replace "The resistance groups in Burma are" with "Hamas is", replace "Burma" with "Israel", and "jungle" with "desert"? If we pretend that is what Zimmermann said, then suddenly some may find his remarks very offensive and not a very good support of easily available strong encryption. The key is that Hamas believes they themselves are as justified as the Burmese rebels believe themselves to be. There is no international arbiter of justice; as Kenneth Waltz would say political groups exist in a "self-help" system. So Zimmermann's opinions are just that. His opinions won't help the Burmese rebels or Hamas obtain what they believe is justice. However both will try, and one of the tools they will use is strong encryption. So although Zimmermann's intentions may be good, he cannot guarantee that only "just" groups will use his software, because groups cannot be easily categorized as "just" and "unjust". What we do know about organizations is that they behave similarly in an anarchic world - to preserve and propagate themselves and their goals. Because all organizations have an interest in security, "good" and "bad" organizations will develop an understanding of what encryption can provide. If your keys (basically passwords) are managed properly, then encryption can secure your immediate communications and your records of past communications. If someone in a group, whether an Amnesty International observer in Algeria or a mobster in Philadelphia, decides to secure their communications then theoretically for the next few hundred years or so the information will be out of the reach of prosecutors. Let us explore the mobster example. Imagine a criminal emails his associates to discuss the next hit, or some fraudulent scheme. This email may implicate many people well enough to send them to prison, such as the godfather, hit men, business associates who are aware of the crimes, etc. If this email is strongly encrypted, all this evidence is lost. It can be assumed that as strong encryption is used more and more by shady groups of all kinds, they will develop protocols and procedures for keeping as much communication as secret as possible for the purpose of cutting ties and prosecutable relationships. So the availability of easy to get and easy to use strong encryption software will lead to illegal organizations using the software to make themselves more resilient to arrests and less susceptible to prosecution. It will also make it extremely hard to get reliable information about terrorist activities, as the only source of information then becomes interrogation, which we know can be defeated with discipline and devotion to one's cause. All groups whether good or bad will use encryption to hide their communications. Zimmermann cannot even clearly point to a universal standard of good or bad, so he knows all groups, whether humanitarian or terrorist will use strong encryption. Groups that learn to incorporate encryption into their procedures will as a result learn to use encryption to make their group's future plans unknowable, their relations unaccountable, and individual members harder to prosecute. Zimmermann's argument that freedom of encryption will provide a powerful deterrent to government oppression is incorrect. Encryption does not provide a meaningful service to citizens. It has only lead to criminals and terrorists having easier access to the technology - citizens of any countries rarely use it. Zimmermann argues along similar lines of the following argument. If only the government is allowed to have guns, then the government can oppress the people. Furthermore criminals will get guns from elsewhere or on the black market, and then they will be able to harass the people and attack the government. Therefore allow the people to have guns as well to defend themselves against government oppression and criminal harassment. This argument works for material things that affect material safety. Examples would be guns among citizens, nuclear weapons between superpowers, and walking in groups at night in unfamiliar places. The basic argument is that one-to-one material deterrents are valid and successful. If you can deter someone with a gun, a nuclear weapon, or group from attacking you, then you have successfully provided material safety. Furthermore the means for protecting yourself are material objects. Information is not a material object. People assume privacy; they do not assume their information is at risk. Encryption is a non-substantive thing; it is mathematical and therefore confined to the mind. Who does the use or possession of encryption deter? According to Zimmermann: Advances in technology will not permit the maintenance of the status quo, as far as privacy is concerned. The status quo is unstable. If we do nothing, new technologies will give the government new automatic surveillance capabilities that Stalin could never have dreamed of. The only way to hold the line on privacy in the information age is strong cryptography. [2] Zimmermann believes strong encryption will deter the government from trying to get information. This is false because the government will still try and succeed, using other methods. An example is this. Imagine a thief who wishes to come into your home in a so-called "home invasion" and take your possessions of value. If you have a shotgun under your bed, you can do something about it. However if the government wants information about you or wants to prosecute you, they will succeed because they have domestic jurisdiction. So what if you slow them down by encrypting your email? You still haven't stopped them from talking to your neighbors, wiretapping your phone, opening your mail, seizing your handwritten notes such as journals, using listening devices to record your speech in your home and elsewhere, et cetera. The widespread use of strong encryption does not lead to less government investigation or legal harassment. The government has de jure right to gather information in whatever way a judge has provided warrant to do. One example is the FBI's development of a key logging system called Magic Lantern to get passwords [4]. The FBI used a "keystroke logging device on the computer of Nicodemo S. Scarfo Jr., hoping to record a password for a file encrypted with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software" [5]. So the FBI will not be deterred from getting your secrets if they want them. Other projects like Tempest [6], Echelon [7], and Carnivore [8] guarantee the government's ability to capture communications. This same principle applies to all other governments, valid or not. Using encryption does not in any way legally or functionally prevent a government from investigating or harassing its citizens. The ill effect of Zimmermann's belief that strong encryption software is necessary to healthy domestic political freedom is that the technology "blows across the border like dandelion seeds blowing in the wind" [1]. I personally do not believe strong encryption would have been put into use by criminals and terrorists had easy to use and easy to get products not been released. Yes the information is available - books and papers on strong encryption are available online, at libraries, at universities, and at bookstores all over the world and have been for decades. But it is one thing for a quiet mathematician to read about encryption; it is far more damaging to release an implementation of the theory into the wild. Had PGP and similar software never been released, I doubt anyone but researchers and national security ministries would have been interested in strong encryption. Militaries, governments, and corporations have always (at least as far back as ancient Rome) used cryptography to hide their intentions should their message bearers be captured. The important point here is that Governments and corporations can afford to hire mathematicians and computer specialists to create, implement, and manage cryptographic solutions. Small terrorist cells certainly don't have the money to hire these people, and I doubt that the mafia or terrorists would ever think to even try to get a hold of cryptography if it had stayed an academic curiosity only put into practice by foreign ministers communicating with their ambassadors or businessmen sending sensitive messages. I have seen the reports validating this argument, but do not currently have a reference, so I will appeal to your common sense and experience. Who do you know that doesn't work at a university and isn't a computer specialist that regularly uses encryption technology to encrypt their emails, instant message conversations, and personal files on their computer? Excluding computer specialists, I know none. I doubt there are very many people out there using encryption who aren't also privacy or civil liberties buffs and who don't work in a computer related field. My point is that common people don't care about PGP or encryption. It just isn't important and taking the time to learn about it and use would be non-productive. The meaning of this argument is that even though Zimmermann may think encryption provides privacy from the government, no one cares. Nearly no one in his target audience uses his software. However it seems that many outside his target audience were enabled by Zimmermann to make their illegal operations more secure. Zimmermann's belief that encryption will help citizens keep their government at bay is false. The government will not be deterred from trying to gather information just because one avenue of data is not available. Encryption was probably not even on the radar screens of anyone except government, corporations, and researchers until the public release of strong encryption software in the early 1990s. Few citizens use strong encryption to protect their communications, but criminals seem to have taken to it handily. Trying to restrict the flow of information once it has become public or widespread seems to never work, and in fact possibly encourages the spread even more. Currently books, papers, and software about encryption are all freely available to people all over the world. Zimmermann argues that this is a good thing. One thing is for sure; the methods are mathematical and sometimes simple. Many encryption schemes can be thought up by amateurs that will provide valid security. And even if all the books and records of encryption in the world were burned, it would still be possible to redevelop the technology from nothing. Not even advanced mathematics would be necessary, although it would help. Trying to control or restrict cryptography software is a fantasy. It can only be fought with advancements in cryptanalysis, but even then there is a known time limitation unless technology or mathematics advances rapidly. One hope lies in key problems - many pieces of software are careless with their keys and should the system be compromised in another way the keys can be salvaged. On the whole strong encryption software is widespread and will remain so. A question of policy arises. I concede strong encryption now cannot be stopped. But perhaps we can learn from our past actions. Why are books explaining strong cryptography sold in bookstores and available online for free? Why is computer cryptography taught at universities and some community colleges? Why were mathematicians allowed to develop a technology that inevitably would lead to a more chaotic world? These questions boil down to the value the world society places on absolute academic freedom. In the west information is held to be sacred, as can be seen in the "freedom of speech" clauses in many nation's constitutions. But most of those constitutions were drafted in a different time, when science was not so advanced that it's development seriously endangered human survival as a whole. Perhaps today with a more knowledgeable perspective we must review what types of speech should be protected, not just what types are protected by the current legal framework. Zimmermann and other's free implementations of cryptography have done little to improve the lives of common citizens, but have done much to improve and secure the operations of oppressed or clandestine groups. The problems lies in the fact that the New York mafia could be considered oppressed by the FBI and that al Qaeda believes they are oppressed by America. So although supposed "good" oppressed groups like humanitarians and activists have benefited, society at large has been adversely affected by the increased capabilities of supposed "bad" groups. Encryption is just a tool, neither good nor evil, but it has gravitated towards those who would use it for the latter. Sources: [1] "Interview with author of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)". Russell D. Hoffman. http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hightech/philspgp. htm
[2]
"Why I Wrote PGP". Phil Zimmermann.
http://www.philZimmermannn.com/essays-WhyIWrotePGP .shtml
[3]
"Al-Qaeda
computer details shoe bomber scouting mission". Hugh Dougherty.
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/Weekly2002/01.15.200 2/UnitedStates5.htm
[4]
"Judge
OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing". Declan McCullagh. http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,49455,00.ht ml
[5]
"Federal
judge okays keyboard stroke capture". George A. Chidi.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/01/04/ 020104hncapture.xml
[6] "NSA/CSS
REG 90-6" (TEMPEST
FOIA Request). NSA.
http://cryptome.org/nsa-reg90-6.htm
[7] "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Echelon". ACLU.
http://www.aclu.org/echelonwatch/faq.html
[8]
"The Carnivore FOIA Litigation". Electronic Privacy Information Center.
http://www.epic.org/privacy/carnivore/
I
personally support free and open strong encryption software and information, I
just wrote this article because it is clear there are some adverse affects to
encryption use that must be considered.
GPG.
Thats how you save PGP.
Brielle
PGP is a product of its own, which is probably good and bad -- good, because you can use it with non-email, and (awkwardly) with most mail clients. S/MIME would have to be built in, I imagine -- but a couple of easy implementations would bring encryption (and decryption) to many more people than the current situation with PGP/GPG/whatever.
So why aren't people making S/MIME capable clients?
They actually need to make (gasp!) MONEY from it. too bad slashdot nerds won't pay .....cuz their allowance has been cut off.
http://www.sente.ch/software/GPGMail/index.html
Instead of the GPL, think about the BSD license. Why? First of all, it's not your software. You aren't the developer or the contributor. The BSD license gives you exactly the same rights as a user under the GPL, plus a few more. On the flip side, the BSD license would allow easier incorporation of PGP technology into existing email clients. Remember, it doesn't matter how leet you are for using PGP if no one in the Windows world is using it. The GPL will relegate PGP to the tool-only status, but it should be much more than that. It should be a standard expected in all applications capable of communication regardless of their licensing.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It sucked or else it would have made money.
Vote Quimby!
I have used both and it seems both Evolution and KMail have about equal GPG integration... Unfortunatly neither seem to do much in the way of generating new keys or specificially associating keys with contacts... Both look in your db for a key that matches the contacts email... Evolution just errors when it can not find anything... Luckly KMail will actually let you choose a public key out of a list if you really need to.
Luke
In short, 80% of the people who read Slashdot are freeloaders who won't even pay to read their favorite web site.
What makes Slashdot such a great webpage? Is the ability to (most of the time) read about geek news? Or is the ability to read and discuss a certain post with thousands of technical savvy people?
I believe it is the second one. If you remove those 80% (the freeloaders) would you have the diversity? You'd probably have a lot less trolls, but I think you would lose a lot of good with the bad.
I belong to a great LUG which does not charge for membership. If they did, I wouldn't put as much effort into my time there. I try to give just as much as I get. Do I feel that I do? No, not really. I love going and hearing about aspects of Linux that I know nothing about and learning something new.
To tie that to your post, I feel the same way about Slashdot. I could pay for a news website, and get spoonfeed mass media trash, or exert my brain here on Slashdot. These freeloaders might be the very ones who give great info in AskSlashdot, or mirror slashdotted webpages. Pay to read their favorite webpage? They do! They try to give back to the Slashdot community as best as they can.
This is not meant to be a flamebait, you will notice I am logged in even. You seem to think cash is the ONLY method of paying for something. You have a lot to learn about life.
Vertical
72 CD D7 52 D0 7E D8 47 44 91 D5 84 D1 59 F1 A9-This is my 128bit integer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You're out of date. The latest w3c patent policy does *not* allow patented standards unless a Royalty Free license is available. There is a loophole in the policy that says effectively "if we hit a brick wall with this policy and can't implement a standard within it, we'll form an advisory group to decide what to do" (with the implicit suggestion that one of the things they might theoretically do is go with a patented standard) but there are a whole lot of hoops that must be jumped through before that point can even be reached.
Besides, as you would know if you'd done a little research rather than just skimming headlines, the w3c has never *had* a patent policy before, and therefore could easily have created a standard that relied on patented technology. The fact that they haven't is an indication of their general goodwill towards patent-free standards - when they got half-way through SVG and found that apple had a patent on alpha-blending, they stopped what they were doing for ages to try to ensure that the standard would remain patent-free. That was when they started looking into having a patent policy.
Of course, as a closed organization they first asked their members, who are primarily corporations, and those corporations said "we should have patented standards". Hence their first draft. Then they submitted the draft for public review, and NOBODY NOTICED. After a long comment period with no comments, someone suddenly posted it to slashdot with 2 days to go, and all hell broke loose - and the w3c essentially backtracked and now have a sane policy.
If anyone is to blame for the poor original policy, it's the fact that the community wasn't alert - it's mindboggling that the "many eyes" that are supposed to make bugs shallow didn't catch a major announcement like that from the w3c.
Stuart.
BSD? Are you joking? If I'm going to pay for something to be free, why would I want to subsidize the proprietary products of someone else?
But what I really want to do, at least initially, is to promise a payment, which becomes payable when enough other people have promised that the software's current owner agrees to the deal. Inevitably trust issues come up: I might welch on my promise. Or to make things more complicated, I might promise and pay only on the condition of anonymity.
How to do all this? One way would be to place the money in escrow for a limited time, and if the deal doesn't come together by then, I get my money back. The people trying to organize the deal would give themselves a time limit and encourage donors to set their escrow timers for that time limit. A reputable bank or insurance company (or maybe a casino?) could act as the escrow agent.
There's a guy named Ronnie Horesh with a very cool idea called social policy bonds, intended to bring market forces to bear on social issues. Government auctions off bonds, which mature when some measurable social goal occurs, and are then redeemable for larger amounts. He once commented that a social policy bond is like a bet. The government hedges its position (that, say, literacy is good) by begging that literacy won't go up. When literacy does go up, the government has to pay up.
In the same way, if I believe that PGP should go into the public domain, I may hedge that belief by betting Network Associates that they won't do that. They can easily win that bet by releasing PGP, when they decide that winning all those bets is more important than retaining PGP as closed-source software.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
The article seems to suggest that windows users are left in limbo. Not so. Check out:
http://www.winpt.org
No one asking you to pay. Last time I checked you didn't have any code in PGP anyway.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It just seems very strange that all of commerical products that provide good encrypted message transfer have suddenly become "unecconomical" for the companies that make them. Especially in this post Sept 11 world? I think there is something fishy here...And I don't like it.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Instead of putting GPG into a library you can write a CORBA interface and put Bonobo implementation into separate executable file. No more problems with corrupting GPG internals and it would be accessible from any programming language.
The important parts are the Windows infrastructure and the patented protocols that appeared in PGP5.
The Windows infrastructure is more than just the GUI - the GUI is OK, but nothing special. The infrastructure includes
- a low level secure storage driver at the OS level
- integration with many mail clients
- an Explorer shell extension to handle encrypt / decrypt, secure wipe, and verify functions
- a secure viewer with anti-tempest fonts
- the PGPNet VPN solution
- the PGPDisk secure storage solution
This is what NAI have paid to develop, and this is why it represents a major loss.Jon.
N/T
Where's jamie the fuckwad?
Who cares about PGP... if companies and investors are not opting in, there is a reason... ponder that.
The reason is the complexity. Most people are not concerned with complex key ring schemes, expiring keys, and electronically signing e-mail. They just want a way to encrypt e-mail so that it's not easily sniffed.
The Article said that freeware versions of PGP do no work with XP. That is simply not true. I am using PGP 6.5.8, and it runs fine in winXP Pro.
Also, MIT's PGP Distro site is operating.
-dcviper
Ummm, err, say what, now?
Maybe you ought to look at the post this was a reply-to-a-reply to, or even the post that you replied to.
You must smoke even more weed than me to have that much memory loss..
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
No. Instead of going for laissez-faire dear to US minds (but not to most other countries, something they don't seem to realize), governement can regulate to prevent non-sense and abuse. Losing Intellectual Property rights on unused material was the initial proposal. You can debate this, or the more dangerous related problem, companies buying a whole set of competitive technologies' patents just to bury them because they would kill their core business.
PGP is good enough to save the lives of political dissidents in africa, asia & south america from repressive governments reading their email.
There are numerous examples of windows being used in life or death workplaces and failing the user.
The US Navy once had to tow a Aircraft Carrier back to harbour just because Windows 95 died. What would happen if the Aircraft Carrier was in a warzone?
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Steering systems were apparently being run under NT in some way. I cannot imagine anyone feeling WIN9x was ever suitable for a mission critical application like that but possibly NT. That they apparently didn't have a suitable mechanical backup is telling - no chance of power being knocked out to that system during an actual fight? No chance of the computer hardware taking smoke damage and dying? Who builds these things?!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org