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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/9/26 6:41 PM, John Gilmore wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:9098.1773106864@hop.toad.com">
<pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">Kent Borg and Jon Callas wrote:
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<pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">[...] the Kent who has currency in his wallet with serial numbers of it, and though those serial numbers are in no way "truly random", it is exceedingly likely no one in the world knows what those serial numbers are...
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<pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">Oh, yes. This is one of the points I was trying to make. All we need is something that is arbitrarily hard for an adversary to guess...
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Do you both really believe that that modern ATM machines aren't recording
the serial numbers of the paper cash that they issue to you?</pre>
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<p>Oh, I know for sure they are doing what they can along those
lines. I just said no one knows the serial numbers of the cash in
<i>my</i> wallet. I know something of how it got there, and mostly
I know little about how it got there, because I deal with cash so
little these days that it sits there so long. Enough uncertainty
to make it real entropy for an RNG.</p>
<p>Certainly if you went from an empty wallet to to a fat one via an
ATM visit, then you should not assume no one knows the serial
numbers in your wallet.</p>
<p>It was a bad example on my part, it spoke too much very specific
circumstances that no one else could know. I apologize for my bad
choice.</p>
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<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:9098.1773106864@hop.toad.com">
<pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">PS: And if you didn't think the US Post Office was photographing and
OCR-ing the envelope of every letter sent through the postal mail, check
out:</pre>
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<p><i>Heck</i> yes. I get an e-mail every day from the post office
sending me copies of those scans. They have the data anyway, I at
least want my copy!</p>
<p>Actually, I get two such e-mails every day, one for my post
office box and one for my physical address. At least the days I
get mail. Like cash, who uses snail mail anymore? </p>
<p>There is a third address for which I would like those e-mails,
but they aren't available for that address. Hmmm, holes in the spy
network, and as USPS is slowly crumbling, the holes might never
get filled.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>-kb, the Kent knows at least something about how they are spying
on him.</p>
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