asciilifeform: Apocalyptic: is what worth read

asciilifeform: esp. if the stake was thick (the 'dracula' chronicle i translated some weeks ago carefully specified 'thick')

asciilifeform: the 'client' would be left alone with his thoughts for some days.

asciilifeform: benderp: impalement (of the king vlad, rather than assyrian, variety) was a much more leisurely affair

asciilifeform: lol

asciilifeform: hose in mouth

asciilifeform: except the jerries did it in reverse

asciilifeform: (or rather, adjacent to one)

asciilifeform: it was in a mechanic's shop

asciilifeform: where the germans came across a school full of orthodox jews and publicly dispatched them in exactly this way.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: the air compressor story is inescapably linked in my mind with Latvia.

asciilifeform: bureaucrats wanted to 'look tough' that one time.

asciilifeform: it was largely never enforced, except for a certain very famous case where it was.

asciilifeform: *offense

asciilifeform: in the ussr, trade in (and even possession) of gold bullion was theoretically a capital opffense

asciilifeform: storytime

asciilifeform: no argument. just that some naive lost soul might mistakenly conclude that 'u.s. bureaucrats, harmless'

asciilifeform: *road

asciilifeform: like 'silk roat' et al.

asciilifeform: if anything, they are hungry for easy meat

asciilifeform: so u.s. bureaucrats are not harmless merely because of their everyday impotence.

asciilifeform: right

asciilifeform: well, their standard diet, for whatever biological reason

asciilifeform: because they are unable to catch the meat that they actually like

asciilifeform: rather than the strongest

asciilifeform: essence being, it is the weak/old/injured beasts that are the most dangerous to man

asciilifeform: a study of tigers and when/how/why they eat human

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: ever read 'Man-Eaters of Kumaon', by J. Corbett ?

asciilifeform: (see the 'new york death ray' case recently)

asciilifeform: no need to go far for other examples. fbi, for instance, mainly relies on entrapment to manufacture 'terrorists'

asciilifeform: just the same way as nsa is built for a certain purpose

asciilifeform: sec can be manned by devils, or by mild-mannered bureaucrats just plodding along, paying their credit card bills. but in point of fact, it is a machine built for preventing americans from doing certain voluntary things with their money

asciilifeform: then, delicious crunch crunch

asciilifeform: all of these tentacles limp along, until they encounter... a meal.

asciilifeform: you might as well imagine that 'fda' exists For The Good of The People

asciilifeform: because it is a fruit of the poisoned tree (fdr/'newdeal')

asciilifeform: it's an arm of the beast

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: to the extent sec exists for some actual purpose, that purpose includes infesting the btc world with whatever plagues can be conjured up, not extinguishing them

asciilifeform: or the incentive.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: might as well ask the buggers to skip straight to kissing the ring (tm)

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: lol

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: because my dosimeter is just about maxed out now.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: if you'd love to take over this 'customer' i'll be happy to sit back and watch.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: doesn't seem to work terribly well. perhaps my hands simply don't grow from the correct place.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: trying my hand at doing the kind of thing you do - enlightening stone age man

asciilifeform: joecool: no reason why the above doesn't apply to the gpg smartcard.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i'm probably just being successfully trolled

asciilifeform: it has to be a system that an interested, moderately-educated user might be able to... understand.

asciilifeform: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1299

asciilifeform: as described here:

asciilifeform: likewise, open source is not enough.

asciilifeform: correct.

asciilifeform: ah ok

asciilifeform: (i thought you owned one of these, it's clear if you do)

asciilifeform: the toggle switch.

asciilifeform: joecool: trying to explain to ninjashogun why a crypto-gizmo like yubikey is fundamentally braindamaged

asciilifeform: joecool: yes

asciilifeform: ninjashogun: it is trivial to design a crypto-whatever with malicious trapdoor

asciilifeform: now why would i wish to buy this product?

asciilifeform: in usd it'll be 5-6 figures.

asciilifeform: ninjashogun: you mentioned a chinese manufacturing contact. ask him. he'll tell you an exact cost, in the currency of your choice.

asciilifeform: and whether it matches what is printed on the box ?

asciilifeform: what would it cost you to determine exactly what the micro does

asciilifeform: i mean, you can certainly describe it in encyclopaedic terms.

asciilifeform: ok, now what's inside the micro ?

asciilifeform: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4118/4747398370_f53198b421_b.jpg

asciilifeform: ok here we go

asciilifeform: what's inside?

asciilifeform: take your yubikey, etc. and disassemble it

asciilifeform: ok, patiently explaining:

asciilifeform: ninjashogun: you were just told why a 'security' gizmo in the shape of a card is inescapably worthless. care to disagree? or do you even read replies at all

asciilifeform: not so much as a shoelace.

asciilifeform: glad that you understand at least this.

asciilifeform: and in what pesthole country

asciilifeform: ninjashogun: what part of this crap do you imagine is patentable?

asciilifeform: in sufficient detail to build a second.

asciilifeform: ninjashogun: homework. determined the cost of, starting with nothing but idle hands, personally determining exactly what your 'yubikey' does.

asciilifeform: and for philosopher's stone.

asciilifeform: the market for cold fusion is also there.

asciilifeform: etc

asciilifeform: its shield?

asciilifeform: for instance, where in the keychain could one stuff an analogue rng, auditable with the naked eye and oscilloscope ?

asciilifeform: one of the things people refuse to understand about 'yubikey' et al is that miniaturization of the keychain/card variety is fundamentally antithetical to genuine security.

asciilifeform: ninjashogun: anyway, take this to the 'trezor' folks, not me. i've personally no interest in manufacturing 'lukewarm wallets.'

asciilifeform: ninjashogun: if you'd like to trick people, you've the wrong address

asciilifeform: moiety: i'm about to drink some as we speak.

asciilifeform: pray tell, why does it need to look like a card?

asciilifeform goes to boil some tea using gpg

asciilifeform: where the vendors actually have a strong incentive to permit some fraud

asciilifeform: discussion was about classical fiat bank cards

asciilifeform: afaik chip & pin is still a crock of shit quite like traditional magstripe (i.e. it doesn't use crypto challenge/response but a fixed secret)

asciilifeform: might as well make it thin and cylindrical, to stuff up arse

asciilifeform: use it where ?!

asciilifeform: all you'll get is angry idiots who stuff it in an ordinary atm

asciilifeform: what is the point of this?

asciilifeform: 'atm using btc' is old hat

asciilifeform: either his own, or some charlatan's remote box

asciilifeform: the luser is still relying on a pc to actually crank the protocol

asciilifeform: all this does is store keys

asciilifeform: that'd be something like 'trezor'