RE: [Full-Disclosure] Cryptome Hacked!

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From: "Steve Wray" <steve.wray@paradise.net.nz>
To: <full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 17:49:45 +1300

From the group charter:
"Politics should be avoided at all costs."

So discussion about the discussion of politics is ok
but discussion of politics is not?

8-/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: full-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.com
> [mailto:full-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.com] On Behalf Of
> Kevin Spett
> Sent: Thursday, 27 February 2003 5:29 p.m.
> To: Sung J. Choe; full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com; jya@pipeline.com
> Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] Cryptome Hacked!
>
>
> RE: [Full-Disclosure] Cryptome Hacked!>> a) What do you mean
> by "leftist"?
> > By scrutinizing some of the occasional statements made by
> persons posting
> > at cryptome, one can assume that the politics of the site
> operators leans
> > towards the left. Read the message traffic generated by
> "The practical
> > reason the US is starting a war." and you will understand.
>
> Okay, while you were busy scrutinizing occasional statements,
> the rest of us
> look at consistent, broad and prevaling themes. John Young's
> views are
> unique enough that they do not fall into either of the two
> categories that
> people love to imagine the whole spectrum of political
> opinion is divided
> into. Reasonable people don't care to reduce any given
> political stance as
> being some point on a line with "Left" on one end and "Right"
> on the other.
> While Bill Clinton (who I heard was a Democrat, which in
> turn, I hear are on
> "the Left") was in office, the ideas and information
> expressed on Cryptome
> were constantly in opposition to his policies, actions and
> propositions.
> The fact that the Clipper Chip had the support of "the Left"
> didn't seem to
> deter Cryptome from criticizing it.
>
> "The practical reason the US is starting a war" is an overt
> editorial (it's
> an email message) that discusses war and its possible
> consequences. It
> doesn't discuss anything that could be correctly classified
> as "Leftist".
> Or did I miss a line in there about how stronger government
> regulation of
> the means of production would produce a society in which
> wealth were more
> justly distributed? It's written by someone whose opinions
> (no matter how
> ridiculous they are) might be of interest to people who
> follow cryptography.
> Bonus information: it is neither written by, nor expressly
> endorsed by John
> Young. It's just an opinion that has been posted. If you
> care to, you can
> write a disagreeing opinion and it'll be put up on the
> thread, just like
> other people have.
>
> >> b) What do you mean by "anti-American" (sic)?
>
> > I would personally define anti-American as being in a state of mind
> > where every action taken by the US government is
> represented as being
> > against American interests. Therefore, my definitions of
> anti-American
> > and anti-government are essentially identical.
>
> Let's look at the language you use here: "every action taken by the US
> government" and "against American interests". As for the
> first, it's a
> silly hyperbole that isn't even true when you limit its scope
> to that which
> is reasonable: cryptography, intellectual property, privacy
> and government
> intelligence. When the US government relaxed the export
> controls on PGP or
> when the Communications Decency Act was defeated did John
> Young rail on and
> on about how they were horrible events and how the government
> was a terrible
> institution for allowing them to occur? Hmmm, I must have not checked
> Cryptome that day. As for the latter... if John Young dissaproved of
> actions that he felt were "against American interests",
> wouldn't that make
> him pro-American? Your arguments seems at odds with one another.
>
> Also, many people do not define the word "American" as the
> ideas and actions
> supported by those in power in American government.
> Similarly, definitions
> of "anti-government" vary. I'm fairly certain that John Young is not
> inherently against government. He would probably like a
> government that
> made it a priority to protect the civil liberties of its citizens.
>
> > Just because somebody can formulate an argument based on one, two,
> > or three documents does not mean that they grasp the full meaning
> > of the subject in question.
>
> Don't you know it!!!
>
> > Yet, that's how most of the "opinions" and "arguments" are
> presented;
> > with one or two sources. And besides, what is "real information"?
> > Ever hear of "public diplomacy"?
>
> Every article on Cryptome should be considered individually.
> Typically,
> they are more informative and give more information about
> their sources than
> CNN.com or the ten o'clock news. I'm not really interested
> in debating
> epistemology here. Do you believe that no information is
> real and that
> we're really living in the world of the Matrix where the evil
> AIs of the
> future are battling humans for control of the earth?
>
> >> I've never seen any kind of anarchist advocacy on
> >> cryptome. Dissent does not make you "anti-government".
>
> >Responsible dissent is indeed a duty of US citizens. How you define
> > responsible is up to you.
>
> >> d) For the most part, Cryptome distributes documents... like,
> >> in plaintext format.
>
> > True, but they also present snippits of those docs along with a
> > headline. The sections that they choose to snip fascinates me in
> > terms of the content which they feel is important.
>
> Again, it's silly to seek more information in a few
> "snippets" than in a
> large quantity of actual content. I'm sure that you and your
> buddy Ann
> Coulter like to sit around for days and talk about "spin" and
> "bias" while
> other people choose to debate things of actual meaning. Cryptome is a
> blatantly baised site; It doesn't take a detective to realize
> that. That
> doesn't neccessarily damage its integrity.
>
> >> e) How is John Young an "extremist"?
> > Would you describe him as being conservative, or moderate
> in his approach?
> > If not, he is an extremist in my eyes.
>
> Again, you choose to oversimplify things... are conservative,
> moderate and
> extreme the only things that are out there? When I think of
> extremists, I
> think of people like the Black Panthers, Adolf Hitler, Hamas
> and Thomas
> Jefferson. John Young runs a website. He simply isn't in
> the running for
> Extremism.
>
> >> Are you trying to imply that John Young is trojaning
> >> the software that his site (infrequently) distributes?
>
> > Not at all. I believe that Mr. Young wishes to provide his
> > community access to good crypto software. I also believe
> > that he is committed to his cause. However, I do think that
> > those who work for/with No Such Agency would like that.
>
> You think that the NSA is modifying widely distributed crypto
> software?
> Okay, that's possible. How about some proof? You can
> speculate endlessly
> on the behaviour of an organization that no one has a lot of
> information
> about.
>
> > Cryptome (note Crypt) does indeed distribute and advocate the
> > use of PGP and other encryption and/or privacy enhancing software.
> > Given the more-paranoid-than-normal state of most of the cryptome
> > visitors (myself included), I would think that quite a high
> percentage
> > of them download and use the software for their own reasons.
>
> You posted a message saying that cryptome had been hacked and
> that you were
> concerned about software that it mirrors might be tampered
> with not only on
> Cryptome but on other sites. The software that cryptome has
> is also located
> in many, many other places and thus it would be easy to spot
> differences
> between them. If you want to start asking "how do I trust the hashing
> tool", "how do I trust the crypto algorithm" or "how do I
> trust the compiler
> that I'm using to build the code that I wrote to implement
> the algorithm",
> you've wandered outside the scope of what most people on this
> list care to
> answer.
>
> > In conclusion, for you to attempt to describe cryptome as if it was
> > C-SPAN, or the Library of Congress is incredible. If you
> believe that
> > the operators of cryptome have good intentions towards the
> US government,
> > than you are also naive.
>
> Cryptome is a site that strongly promotes a very specific
> agenda which is
> often at odds with established public policy and popular
> opinion. It also
> publishes opinions of dissent that it may not fully support
> but feel deserve
> discussion and exposure. Neither John Young nor Cryptome are
> many of the
> things that you have described them as. The purpose of my
> message was to
> point out what I believe were errors in how you portrayed them.
>
>
> Kevin.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
> Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
>

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html

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