From: kspett at spidynamics.com (Kevin Spett)
Subject: 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.

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