Re: Pretty Lousy Privacy

At 06:19 AM 12/19/96 -0800, you wrote:
:John H West wrote:
:> Are Dr DVT & Ray Arachelian the same pair who relentlessly
:> spammed the Net about three years ago.

[snip]

How soon can we expect Turkish and Armenian language modules for this beta?

What is status vis-a-vis export?

Thanks for the effort.
 
Cordially,

Alec                   

PGP Fingerprint:
Type bits/keyID    Date       User ID
pub  1024/41207EE5 1996/04/08 Alec McCrackin <camcc@abraxis.com>
          Key fingerprint =  09 13 E1 CB B3 0C 88 D9  D7 D4 10 F0 06 7D DF 31

Alec wrote:
> How soon can we expect Turkish and Armenian language modules for this beta?

Alec,
  All of our Turkish programmers are dead.  All of our Armenian 
programmers'
keyboards are screwed because of the blood dripping off of their fingers.
  Say, you don't think Dr. DVK could be onto something here, do you? (:>)
-- 
Reply to:toto@sk.sympatico.ca
"There's only one two."

Carl Johnson <toto@sk.sympatico.ca> writes:

> Alec wrote:
> > How soon can we expect Turkish and Armenian language modules for this beta?
>
> Alec,
>   All of our Turkish programmers are dead.  All of our Armenian
> programmers'
> keyboards are screwed because of the blood dripping off of their fingers.

You may well be right. Were any of the Azeri civilians murdered by
Armenians in Khojaly computer programmers? Are any of their killers
presently employed by Earthweb as associate network administrators?


_Newsweek_ 16 March 1992

By Pascal Privat with Steve Le Vine in Moscow


             THE FACE OF A MASSACRE

Azerbaijan was a charnel house again last week:  a  place
of  mourning  refugees  and  dozens  of  mangled  corpses
dragged  to  a  makeshift morgue behind the mosque.  They
were  ordinary  Azerbaijani men, women  and  children  of
Khojaly, a  small village  in  war-torn  Nagorno-Karabakh
overrun  by  Armenian  forces on Feb.  25-26.  Many  were
killed  at  close range while trying to  flee;  some  had
their  faces  mutilated, others were scalped.  While  the
victims' families mourned,

Photo: `We will never forgive the Armenians': Azeri woman
       mourn a victim.




_The New York Times_, Tuesday, March 3, 1992


                    MASSACRE BY ARMENIANS

Agdam, Azerbaijan, March 2 (Reuters) - Fresh evidence emerged
today of a massacre of civilians by Armenian militants in
Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave of Azerbaijan.

                         Scalping Reported

Azerbaijani officials and journalists who flew briefly to the region
by helicopter brought back three dead children with the back of their
heads blown off. They said shooting by Armenians has prevented them
from retrieving more bodies.

"Women and children have been scalped," said Assad Faradshev, an aide
to Nagorno-Karabakh's Azerbaijani Governor. "When we began to pick up
bodies, they began firing at us."

The Azerbaijani militia chief in Agdam, Rashid Mamedov, said: "The
bodies are lying there like flocks of sheep. Even the fascists did
nothing like this."

                         Truckloads of Bodies

Near Agdam on the outskirts of Nagorno-Karabakh, a Reuters photographer,
Frederique Lengaigne, said she had seen two trucks filled with Azerbaijani
bodies.

"In the first one I counted 35, and it looked as though there were as
many in the second," she said. "Some had their head cut off, and many
had been burned. They were all men, and a few had been wearing khaki
uniforms."




_The Sunday Times_ 1 March 1992

By Thomas Goltz, Agdam, Azerbaijan


    ARMENIAN SOLDIERS MASSACRE HUNDREDS OF FLEEING FAMILIES

Survivors reported that Armenian soldiers shot and bayoneted more
than 450 Azeris, many of them women and children. Hundreds, possibly
thousands, were missing and feared dead.

The attackers killed most of the soldiers and volunteers defending
the women and children. They then turned their guns on the terrified
refugees. The few survivors later described what happened: 'That's
when the real slaughter began,' said Azer Hajiev, one of three soldiers
to survive. 'The Armenians just shot and shot. And then they came in
and started carving up people with their bayonets and knives.'

'They were shooting, shooting, shooting,' echoed Rasia Aslanova, who
arrived in Agdam with other women and children who made their way
through Armenian lines. She said her husband, Kayun, and a son-in-law
were massacred in front of her. Her daughter was still missing.

One boy who arrived in Agdam had an ear sliced off.

The survivors said 2000 others, some of whom had fled separately,
were still missing in the gruelling terrain; many could perish from
their wounds or the cold.

By late yesterday, 479 deaths had been registered at the morgue in
Agdam's morgue, and 29 bodies had been buried in the cemetery. Of
the seven corpses I saw awaiting burial, two were children and three
were women, one shot through the chest at point blank range.

Agdam hospital was a scene of carnage and terror. Doctors said they
had 140 patients who escaped slaughter, most with bullet injuries or
deep stab wounds.

Nor were they safe in Agdam. On friday night rockets fell on the city
which has a population of 150,000, destroying several buildings and
killing one person.



_The Times_ 2 March 1992

              CORPSES LITTER HILLS IN KARABAKH

   (ANATOL LIEVEN COMES UNDER FIRE WHILE FLYING TO INVESTIGATE
       THE MASS KILLINGS OF REFUGEES BY ARMENIAN TROOPS)

As we swooped low over the snow-covered hills of Nagorno-Karabagh
we saw the scattered corpses. Apparently, the refugees had been
shot down as they ran. An Azerbaijani film of the places we flew
over, shown to journalists afterwards, showed DOZENS OF CORPSES
lying in various parts of the hills.

The Azerbaijanis claim that AS MANY AS 1000 have died in a MASS
KILLING of AZERBAIJANIS fleeing from the town of Khodjaly, seized
by Armenians last week. A further 4,000 are believed to be wounded,
frozen to death or missing.

The civilian helicopter's job was to land in the mountains and pick
up bodies at sites of the mass killings.

The civilian helicopter picked up four corpses, and it was during
this and a previous mission that an Azerbaijani cameraman filmed
the several dozen bodies on the hillsides.

Back at the airfield in Agdam, we took a look at the bodies the
civilian helicopter had picked up. Two old men a small girl were
covered with blood, their limbs contorted by the cold and rigor
mortis. They had been shot.




_TIME_ March 16, 1992


By Jill SMOLOWE

-Reported by Yuri ZARAKHOVICH/Moscow


          M A S S A C R E  I N  K H O J A L Y

While the details are argued, this much is plain: something grim
and unconscionable happened in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly
two weeks ago. So far, some 200 dead Azerbaijanis, many of them
mutilated, have been transported out of the town tucked inside
the Armenian-dominated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh for burial in
neighboring Azerbaijan. The total number of deaths - the Azerbaijanis
claim 1,324 civilians have been slaughtered, most of them women and
children - is unknown.

Videotapes circulated by the Azerbaijanis include images of defaced
civilians, some of them scalped, others shot in the head.




_BBC1 Morning News at 07.37, Tuesday 3 March 1992_

BBC reporter was live on line and he claimed that he saw more
than 100 bodies of Azeri men, women and children as well as a
baby who are shot dead from their heads from a very short distance.

_BBC1 Morning News at 08:12, Tuesday 3 March 1992_

Very disturbing picture has shown that many civilian corpses
who were picked up from mountain. Reporter said he, cameraman
and Western Journalists have seen more than 100 corpses, who
are men, women, children, massacred by Armenians. They have
been shot dead from their heads as close as 1 meter. Picture
also has shown nearly ten bodies (mainly women and children)
are shot dead from their heads. Azerbaijan claimed that more
than 1000 civilians massacred by Armenian forces.

_Channel 4 News at 19.00, Monday 2 March 1992_

2 French journalists have seen 32 corpses of men, women and
children in civilian clothes. Many of them shot dead from
their heads as close as less than 1 meter.


_Report from Karabakpress_

A merciless massacre of the civilian population of the small
Azeri town of Khojali (Population 6000) in Karabagh, Azerbaijan,
is reported to have taken place on the night of February 28 by
the Soviet Armenian Army. Close to 1000 people are reported to
have been massacred. Elderly and children were not spared. Many
were badly beaten and shot at close range. A sense of rage and
helplessness has overwhelmed the Azeri population in face of the
well armed and equipped Armenian Army. The neighboring Azeri city
of Aghdam outside of the Karabagh region has come under heavy
Armenian artillery shelling. City hospital was hit and two pregnant
women as well as a new born infant were killed. Azerbaijan is appealing
to the international community to condemn such barbaric and ruthless
attacks on its population and its sovereignty.


---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> 
>               CORPSES LITTER HILLS IN KARABAKH

Dear Dr.DVK,
   Thank you for your lengthy list of articles on the human slaughter
that continues on earth to this very day.  It reminds me of watching
the TV coverage of Desert Storm, as the news channels took great
delight in replaying scenes of American flyers massacring retreating
Iraquian troops who were beaten and bedraggled, merely trying to 
survive, and get home to their families.
   Basically, they were slaughtered so that the flyboys and their 
superiors at the Pentagon could test their new toys, and make sure
that they worked.
   It was considered acceptable action, however, because these were
the 'bad' guys.  We 'know' that they were, because we were told so by
the ten-second sound-bytes of the New World Order during the nightly
news.  So I listened as millions of Americans cheered the slaughter
of defeated troops, who had thrown up the white flag and retreated,
only to have us blow them away from out of the sky on their way back
home with our wonderful hi-tech weapons.
   I listened as thousands of Americans, including the media, truly 
bought into the Pentagon sound-byte that tells us the world is a
better place because we can slaughter the soldiers of less-developed
countries 'from a distance', using technology, and not 'risk' precious
American lives.  Of course, missles don't take prisoners, so everyone
we make war with has to die, now, don't they.

   Remember that this is the same Pentagon that built the InterNet.
And the same Americans who cheered the slaughter of defeated troops
will be lined up to cheer the slaughter of the misfits among us who
are culled from the herd through the tracking of their activities 
and their communications on the InterGlobal communications system 
of the New World Order.
   While the vast majority may be enthralled with their pretty, shiny,
new toy--the InterNet--and buy into the sound-bytes that portray it
as an empowerer of the common man, there are others who have, since its
inception, been warning of the 'dark side' of the InterNet.
   When the New World Order becomes a reality, the main difference 
between the next holocaust and the last one will be that the misfits
and outcasts will have GameBoys to play with during their trip to
Auschwitz.

   There is a quote I remember which struck me deeply when I heard it,
but forgive me if it is not quite correct:
   "They came for the Jews, and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't speak up.
They came for the National Socialists, and I wasn't a National Socialist,
so I didn't speak up.  Then they came for me.
   "And nobody spoke up."

   I don't know Phil Zimmerman.  I've never met him and I'd never heard
of him, or of cryptography until the fledgling New World Order began
their crusade to start culling out the misfits who stuck out glaringly
from the common masses by trying to provide them protection from
Big Brother and his goons.
   I didn't know Phil Zimmerman, but I knew his psyche and I knew his
motivations.  You might say that we went to different high-schools
together.  So I spoke up.  Loudly (and anonymously).
   And by the time the sun came up the next morning, bleary-eyed and
tired, I had a copy of PGP on my hard drive.  I had a weapon of
self-defence in my possesion that Phil Zimmerman shed his blood for,
at the hands of the New Pharisees.
  You are free to rail night and day against cryptology and cypherpunks,
and whoever else it pleases you to rail against, because this is America.
But believe me, America is, and will be, a part of the New World Order.
Phil Zimmerman's case was not an 'aberration' of 'what is', it was a
foreshadowing of 'what is to come'.
  But there are others, with more foresight, who rail against the real
threats to mankind, and to freedom, and they do quietly, and in secret,
not wanting to share the fate of Phil Zimmerman and others, who had
too high a profile for the New World Order to ignore.
   These people are not psychic, but they have the foresight to see the
future in the shadows of the past, and they will tell you, man, woman,
and child,
   "You will take my cryptography from me when you pry it from my 
cold, dead algorithms."

   So, Dr. DV K, rant and rave as much as pleases you, but be careful
what you rave against, lest they come for you.
   And if you feel the net tightening around you, with the forces of
the New World Order hovering over you, deeming that now 'you' are 
becoming a problem, then think about protecting yourself.  Think about
cryptography.

Kindly,
  Toto

p.s -- If you are going to quote 'news broadcasts' from the BBC, etc,
then please don't quote the same 'bad syntax' in three consecutive
news releases.  i.e - "shot dead from their heads"
   It might give some people reason to wonder if you are authoring
these 'news broadcasts' yourself.
-- 
Reply to:toto@sk.sympatico.ca
"There's only one two."

Carl Johnson <toto@sk.sympatico.ca> writes:

>    Thank you for your lengthy list of articles on the human slaughter
> that continues on earth to this very day.  It reminds me of watching
> the TV coverage of Desert Storm, as the news channels took great
> delight in replaying scenes of American flyers massacring retreating
> Iraquian troops who were beaten and bedraggled, merely trying to
> survive, and get home to their families.

I wish Iraqi people the best of luck in killing every American they can get
their hands on. Three cheers for Saddam Hussein!

>   You are free to rail night and day against cryptology and cypherpunks,
> and whoever else it pleases you to rail against, because this is America.

You are sadly mistaken, child, or maybe you believe the lies Timmy May (fart)
spread about me. I am a professional cryptographer. I believe that crypto
technology should be freely availably to everyone, with no government controls,
like any other technology (like compiler construction :-). I believe that the
Internet should be available to everyone (and I've made a lot of enemies by
helping connect certain parts of the world to the 'net somewhat sooner that
they would have been without my participation). OTOH, "cypher punks" are a
joke, a laughing stock for the media, who stand in the way of these goals.
Re-read the list archives before speaking of things you do not understand.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

On Sat, 21 Dec 1996, Carl Johnson wrote:

>    "They came for the Jews, and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't speak up.
> They came for the National Socialists, and I wasn't a National Socialist,
> so I didn't speak up.  Then they came for me.
>    "And nobody spoke up."

"They" came for the Jews AND the Nazis? Damn, they wanted to cover all
the bases didn't they?

Jeffrey A Nimmo <janimmo@rigel.infonex.com> writes:

> On Sat, 21 Dec 1996, Carl Johnson wrote:
>
> >    "They came for the Jews, and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't speak up.
> > They came for the National Socialists, and I wasn't a National Socialist,
> > so I didn't speak up.  Then they came for me.
> >    "And nobody spoke up."
>
> "They" came for the Jews AND the Nazis? Damn, they wanted to cover all
> the bases didn't they?

"They" being the "cypher punks", I presume?

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

Carl Johnson wrote:
> Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> Dear Dr.DVK,
>    Thank you for your lengthy list of articles on the human slaughter[snippo]
>    There is a quote I remember which struck me deeply when I heard it,
> but forgive me if it is not quite correct:
>    "They came for the Jews, and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't speak up.
> They came for the National Socialists, and I wasn't a National Socialist,
> so I didn't speak up.  Then they came for me. "And nobody spoke up."

As I remember the quote, it ended something like "and they came for me,
but there was nobody left to speak up".

[mo' snip]

> "You will take my cryptography from me when you pry it from my
> cold, dead algorithms."  Think about cryptography.

We're all thinking about it.  We just don't believe (naively) that just
because someone issues code that was designed 20 years ago, and which
the NSA can undoubtedly crack in a heartbeat, that that code can
necessarily protect us against all comers.

There is a difference between principle and fact.  You have the
principles exactly correct, but as to facts, you have to be eternally
vigilant, i.e., don't get too comfortable with PGP et al.

Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net> writes:
> >    There is a quote I remember which struck me deeply when I heard it,
> > but forgive me if it is not quite correct:
> >    "They came for the Jews, and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't speak up.
> > They came for the National Socialists, and I wasn't a National Socialist,
> > so I didn't speak up.  Then they came for me. "And nobody spoke up."

Replacing trade unionists by national socialists? An interesting Freudian slip.

> As I remember the quote, it ended something like "and they came for me,
> but there was nobody left to speak up".
>
> [mo' snip]
>
> > "You will take my cryptography from me when you pry it from my
> > cold, dead algorithms."  Think about cryptography.
>
> We're all thinking about it.  We just don't believe (naively) that just
> because someone issues code that was designed 20 years ago, and which
> the NSA can undoubtedly crack in a heartbeat, that that code can
> necessarily protect us against all comers.
>
> There is a difference between principle and fact.  You have the
> principles exactly correct, but as to facts, you have to be eternally
> vigilant, i.e., don't get too comfortable with PGP et al.

The use of encryption in civilial life should as ubiquitous as it is in the
military. The distance from weak crypto to strong crypto is much shorter than
the distance from no crypto to some crypto deployed. Deployment of crypto
takes a serious investment in the infrastructure (such as procedures and
protocols for key distribution), but this investment can be recycled for the
next, stronger, crypto.

Instead of writing code, "cypher punks" verbally abuse anyone who's actually
capable of writing code and proposing new programs and cryptoschemes to
supplant or complement the short list of "cypher punks"-approved apps - recall
Don Wood, literally drowned in obscenities by Paul Bradley.

Instead of encouraging the deployment of crypto, "cypher punks" whine about
the export controls - the circle jerk practices by the punks and their friends
in USG designed to make each other feel important. But in reality neither
punks nor the export controls are relevant. Copyright and libel laws are
irrelevant on the Internet. Child porn is punishable hardeer than strong
crypto, yet there are tons of it on Usenet. USG and other governments are
irrelevant. So are the punks who battle them instead of deploying crypto.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

Dale Thorn wrote:
> As I remember the quote, it ended something like "and they came for me,
> but there was nobody left to speak up".

Dale,
  Thanks, I love the quote but can't find it or it's source.  Perhaps I can put it
all together in bits and pieces.

>  We just don't believe (naively) that just
> because someone issues code that was designed 20 years ago, and which
> the NSA can undoubtedly crack in a heartbeat, that that code can
> necessarily protect us against all comers.

   I don't thinkI'm very naieve about cryptography.  I fully realize that the same
goons that will crack you over the head for what you've written, will also be
prone to cracking you over the head for 'not' being able to read what you
have written.
 
> There is a difference between principle and fact.  You have the
> principles exactly correct, but as to facts, you have to be eternally
> vigilant, i.e., don't get too comfortable with PGP et al.

   Thanks for the advice.  PGP serves me very well for most of my correspondences,
but I add a little 'je ne sais quoi' to it for things I consider to be of more
personal import.  It's probably something that experienced crytptographers would
laugh at, but just because I'm not a professional security-alarm designer doesn't
mean I'm going to leave my housekey under the front door mat.
-- 
Reply to:toto@sk.sympatico.ca
"There's only one two."

Carl Johnson wrote:
> Dale Thorn wrote:

> Thanks, I love the quote but can't find it or it's source.  Perhaps I
> can put it all together in bits and pieces.

As long as we're getting closer on that one, I thought I'd add my own
twist on another famous (but obnoxious) quote:

The standard version:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.  (quote not necessarily exact).

My version:
God grant me the wisdom to know the difference between right and wrong;
The courage to support those who I feel are doing the right things,
 and to oppose those who are doing the wrong things;
And the serenity to do so as peacefully as possible.

BTW, when I bought my first Sinead O'Connor album (Lion & Cobra), I
thought it was the best album ever recorded (apologies to James Brown),
but then she released another album with the standard version quote
(as above) leading off the first song, and I nearly barfed.

> > There is a difference between principle and fact.  You have the
> > principles exactly correct, but as to facts, you have to be eternally
> > vigilant, i.e., don't get too comfortable with PGP et al.

> Thanks for the advice.  PGP serves me very well for most of my correspondences,
> but I add a little 'je ne sais quoi' to it for things I consider to be of more
> personal import.  It's probably something that experienced crytptographers would
> laugh at, but just because I'm not a professional security-alarm designer doesn't
> mean I'm going to leave my housekey under the front door mat.

Everybody with computer experience has different levels of security for
different applications/files etc.; I'm only suggesting that it would be
nice when people discuss applications of PGP (as opposed to mere technical
aspects of PGP), that they would include comments as to the expected level
of security.  I get the impression from posters that some of them consider
their encryption under PGP to be absolutely unreadable by NSA et al.
Which BTW may be possible under some circumstances, but which circum-
stances probably don't apply in most cases.