Joe Cypherpunk

Name: Ivan Cypherpunk
E-Mail Address: cypherpunks@algebra.com
sixdegrees Password: listhome

Hi. You've been sponsored as "Significant Other" by Joe Cypherpunk 
as part of something called sixdegrees, one of the fastest growing 
phenomena on the Web, located at http://www.sixdegrees.com

You may have already heard of the six degrees of separation concept 
- where everyone on the planet is connected to each other through 
fewer than 6 people. Well, we haven't quite connected the whole 
world yet, but there are over a million people participating, and 
over 900,000 of them are connected in one giant chain. 

And, just by confirming your relationship with Joe, you can 
instantly tap into this interconnected community of interesting people 
from all over the world.

So what? Well, by getting connected, you can come to the Web site 
(which is completely FREE) and use a whole variety of valuable, fun 
and intriguing services that make use of this massive chain of 
connections.

You can come see who's logged on the site right now and when you 
find someone interesting, we'll show you exactly how you're 
connected no matter how many degrees it takes, and then you can 
instant message them. 

You can also find out how you're connected to that head of personnel 
at the big firm where you've been trying to get your foot in the 
door. 

You can chat with people from around the globe and then see who you
know in common. 

You can post burning questions on your own personalized bulletin 
board and get valuable answers from your "circle" (your friends 
and friends of friends). 

You can even get Movie recommendations from the people you're 
connected to.

So, stop by the site at http://www.sixdegrees.com to learn more and 
give it a try. (You can log in with this password: listhome). 

====================================================================

You can also get things started and get yourself connected right 
from this e-mail: 

** To confirm your relationship with Joe, just send a reply 
   that says only CONFIRM on the first line of the message body

*  To deny this particular relationship (but keep open the
   possibility of joining sixdegrees if the concept intrigues you) 
   send a reply that says only DENY

*  And, if you'd like to make sure you don't hear from us again 
   (even if somebody else you know lists you as a contact) then 
   simply send a reply which says REMOVE in the SUBJECT LINE so 
   we can process your request right away

Thanks, and we look forward to seeing you at sixdegrees.

====================================================================

And, if you're really ambitious, you can get your network of 
connections growing right away. Just list the people you think might 
be interested in participating in sixdegrees and we'll contact them 
with an e-mail like this one which mentions your name and invites 
them to join.

Just follow these directions:

*  Click your mail program's REPLY button. 

*  On the FIRST line of the message body of the reply e-mail that 
   opens, type only the word CONFIRM to let us know that you 
   are in fact Joe's Significant Other.

*  On the next line of the message body list the first and last 
   names and e-mail addresses of the people you'd like to invite
   (you can list as many as you'd like - but we recommend you list 
   at least two), and the relationship numbers that correspond 
   with how those people are related to you. 

MAKE SURE:  

*  That the first name, last name, e-mail address and relationship 
   number are separated by SEMI-COLONS. 

*  You follow the format of these examples:

     John; Smith; jsmith@fakeplace.com; 12
     Jane; Doe; superjane@fakeplace.com; 3

*  And that you define each relationship by choosing a number from 
   this list:

 1=wife              2=husband              3=life partner
 4=significant other 5=mother               6=father
 7=sister            8=brother              9=daughter
10=son              11=other family member 12=friend
13=employer         14=employee            15=co-worker
16=client           17=service provider    18=business contact
19=fellow alum      20=acquaintance 


We look forward to hearing from you!

===================================================================

PLEASE NOTE: All replies to this address are processed by a 
computer. If you have any problems, questions or requests send 
an e-mail to issues@sixdegrees.com and you'll receive a prompt 
and courteous response.

And, if you'd like to review our privacy statement just visit 
http://www.sixdegrees.com/Public/About/Privacy.asp

====================================================================

sixdegrees is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.


E.DB.ANB.1

wow, a new site called sixdegrees.com, in which everyone
registers and reveals who their friends are. the privacy
implications are really incredible. yet supposedly
close to 1 million people joined, with 900,000 of them
connected!!

 wow!! boy, it sure would be interesting to
write software that analyzed this data.

 reminds me of another program someone wrote that looked
up proper nouns in the ciabase database, I think, and
showed the relationships. probably the kind of software
that intelligence agencies use all the time. pretty sophisticated.

amazing what the information revolution is bringing. in
many ways, extraordinary things can be done merely by
sloshing information around in creative ways. no one
has really predicted some of the coolest stuff that
is happening.

wheeeeeeee!!! cyberspace is so much fun!!!

At 12:47 AM 9/11/98 -0700, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
>wow, a new site called sixdegrees.com, in which everyone
>registers and reveals who their friends are. the privacy
>implications are really incredible. yet supposedly
>close to 1 million people joined, with 900,000 of them
>connected!!

We've got a somewhat related Cypherpunks problem,
which is PGP key signatures.  The traditional software
likes chains of less than 4 deep, yet the last time
I checked the key servers, there were chains as deep as 
12-14, and most people seemed to be at least 6 signatures
away from Phil Zimmermann or Derek Atkins, who were the
centers of the list at the time.  (On the other hand, 
I suppose a lot of signatures between Joe Cypherpunk, 
Ivan Cypherpunk, T0T0M0nger, etc. could improve the averages :-)

The PGP Web of Trust key management tools have the
difficulty that they don't make it easy to decide which 
signatures on your key to export when giving someone
a key to sign or distributing a key to a key server.
You can manage this somewhat by creating different
name/key pairs for different uses, with your
	Phil Zimmermann, Respected Entrepreneur
key signed by venture capitalists and your
	Phil Zimmermann, Anti-Nuclear Activist
signed by your fellow activists, and trying to make
sure that people who attend meetings at the bank building
where you have your office digitally sign in with their
Respectable Software Developer or Free Speech Activist personnas,
and not with their
	Buddhist Temple Assault Rifle Shooting Club
personnas that seem to overlap with the Respected Entrepreneur web....

I'm not sure how solvable a problem this is - 
there are some parts that are easier to solve, like
- storing secret keyrings entirely in encrypted form
	This could be done using a disk encryptor instead,
	or could be done using an additional passphrase
	to unlock the keyring before determining whether
	the specific key you want it on it; both are annoying.
	The threat is the attack currently being used against T0T0,
	whose secret keyring had a key for a personna that signed a
	supposedly incriminating message.  In his case, it was probably
	just ranting or humor, but there are some PGP users who really
	_are_ trying to overthrow their governments.
and friendlier GUI tools (e.g. the current PGPkeys lets you
	add and delete signatures from a key in the keyring,
	but doesn't let you decide which ones to export except
	by deleting them (or by exporting to a separate keyring
	and using the GUI on that keyring, which is awkward.)

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639