November 1992 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: CypherPunks Mailing list
by dclunie＠pax.tpa.com.AU 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

> From yanek(a)novavax.nova.edu Wed Nov 25 18:20:16 1992 > There always remains the issue of trust. How can I know that your system > has not been compromised, and is logging all in/out messages, and forwarding > them to FBI. This could be happening even without you knowing, for example > if "they" tap your network connection. Absolutely. This is a problem with any system that involves forwarding. For instance the currently proposed scheme advocates encrypting the address to be forwarded too, the remailer server still could have its mail tapped and the same correlation made. Of course my system seems much weaker in the sense that if the server is compromised the database is there for all to see. Of course the other system is just as weak in that if its server is compromised then someone can get the secret key that decrypts the addresses using the pass key from the automated software that does the decryption My objective was not to provide a high grade of anonymity, rather to enhance the functionality provided by existing anonymous services with privacy enhanced mail. Specifically to avoid sysadmins reading your anonymous replies which are often unsolicited and somewhat dubious or compromising. I think it achieves the objective but is clearly not going to sustain a concerted attack on the server by a knowledgeable assailant like the NSA or FBI or their equivalents in this country. To my knowledge, being very naive when it comes to encryption, the provision of anonymity which does not depend on a particular site to do the remailing (and is hence vulnerable as described) is much less straightforward, not to mention inconvenient. Perhaps I am overlooking something obvious to someone more knowledgeable. david

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An Anonymous Contribution...
by tcmay＠netcom.com 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

(The following message arrive in my mailbox, with a request to repost it anonymously. Sometimes these "manual" methods work pretty well! --Tim May) Tim, I have been following your arguments in CypherPunks. The name will turn off a lot of your natural friends, but your arguments are dead on. The Crux of the matter is digital cash. And getting these anonymous remailers working. PGP is a basic enabling thing. Not that RSA hasn't been around forever, but it just wasn't useable without a standard. My deepest gratitude to you and your friends. The remailer business needs to get standardized also. My personal hack is attached below. One problem not addressed in the first crop of remailers is the problem of how do you handle return paths. There are lots of trivial ways to get anonymous outgoing mail. Most telephone systems do not identify the caller, there are lots of other ways to get this function. But the problem is getting an answer back with out unmasking. The mathematicians may be able to conjure up a better scheme, but I see the backward security to be simply a matter of tearing the connection (return path down) faster than it can be backtraced. It would be nicer if some kind of DC-net return path could be devised. But timeout control will definitely work. With a large number of the forwaring nodes, and multi-hop paths, it would become quickly very impractical to shake down the originator, So the return path could be left "up" for quite some time before having to replace it. Certainly long enough for a reasonable reply. Better yet of cource would be a completely uncrackable return path that you could leave up long enough to use institutional advertising. Eg: run a business from. Another way to leave up long lasting connections (return paths) is to select one really HARD point node. This is the one they have to shake down first. And use continuously shifting paths behind that node. (all sounds like a router ? ) If you could repost this anonymously I sure would appreciate it. I am (ahem, respectable), and have some kids left to feed. Could you tell me how to find out more about David Chaum's work? do you have an email address for him, is he on one of the mailers, or have anything published? My hunch is that this whole business could heat up fast. Within just a few years the government could be forced into "wage/price" controls. A great application for the NREN? Thanks, xxxxxxxx(a)yyyyyy.zzz ---------Tear off ----- This is a proposal for a simple anonymous forwarding protocol. 1> With the exception of cases 4> and 5> below: Any message addressed to the forwarding node that does not contain a valid PGP encrypted block, encrypted with the node's public key causes the forwarding node to reply to the sender with its public key, plus whatever other text the node wishes to add. 2> If a properly encrypted message is decrypted with the node's secret key; The body of the decrypted message is scanned for the following sequence: "Please forward this message to:" FORWARD.ADDRESS "Thank you." The trigger strings are what is shown above in the quote marks but not including the quote marks. No actual quote marks are used. Everything after the period of the Thank you. string is forwarded to the address specified by the FORWARD.ADDRESS string. Messages not containing the forwarding request are presumed to be addressed to the node itself. 3> The incoming RETURN.ADDRESS and the FORWARD.ADDRESS are stored by the node. ---- Clean up. 4> Receipt of a message whose RETURN.ADDRESS matches a stored FORWARD.ADDRESS will be repeated without modification to the stored RETURN.ADDRESS associated with the stored FORWARD. ADDRESS. Bounced mail is returned similarly, 5> Receipt of a message whose RETURN.ADDRESS matches a previously stored RETURN.ADDRESS will cause a message to be forwarded to the previously stored FORWARD.ADDRESS If the incomming message in this case contains a valid encrypted block, It will be decrypted and forwarded. Otherwise, whatever contents of the body found will be forwarded. Subject lines should be repeated without modification. Null bodies or subject lines should work. 6> In both cases 4> and 5>, the stored RETURN/FORWARD addresses are erased. -xxxxxxx -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | PGP Public Key: by arrangement.

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Re: Extortion Explosion
by nobody＠alumni.cco.caltech.edu 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

Here's another thought about how crypto anonymity can improve public safety. Today, a lot of police activity is based on informants and "anonymous" tips. Policemen build up relationships with underworld characters who can give them information about criminal activity. In return, the police may offer favors, immunity from arrest, perhaps even cash or contraband in some instances. Some people have claimed that "anonymous sources" are an excuse sometimes used to cover up illegal police activity. An illegal wiretap is used to acquire information, then a warrant is obtained based on this information with the claim that it was actually acquired through an anonymous informant. With the warrant in place, the wiretap is now done legally, and evidence is produced which can be used in court. One problem with anonymous tips is that the people making them are taking a risk. If word gets out that a certain person tipped off the police to some criminal act, they may be targetted for revenge. Personal meetings between police and informers are often necessary (perhaps for payoffs to occur) and these are risky for all involved. Crypto anonymity could make anonymous informing easy and safe. Of course, not all tips would be valuable, but some fraction would be helpful in preventing crimes. Crypto pseudonyms and signatures could be used for informants to develop reputations so that those who have been accurate in the past will get the most attention. Digital cash could even be used for payoffs from cops to informants "under the table", with no need for dangerous face-to-face meetings. A system could even develop in which police would have to bring to a judge not just a blanket claim that there was an anonymous informant, but more substantial evidence, in the form of a digitally signed statement by a pseudonym known to have produced useful information in the past. This could reduce the problem of imaginary informants invented to excuse illegal police activity. Polyanna -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- mQA9AisGm6sAAAEBgLsub7XIi32DjNFKJmGFajDNNIeql4RBmHG/mh9Ns58aBgMv wGRi0KkZ0YIYZZnLpwAFEbQkUG9seWFubmEsIGMvbyA8Y3lwaGVycHVua3NAdG9h ZC5jb20+ -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Re: Hackers, Crackers
by fnerd＠smds.com 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

>Let's cut out this elitist "crackers" crap altogether. >It's just a little bit too PlaySkool, a little bit too >"_I'm_ not a third grader! I'm a _fourth grader_!" The people >who put so much energy into advertising how they're different >tend not to know what the fuck they're talking about, in >my experience. Well, I don't know about this guy, but there's something similar that occurred to me during the hackers conference. Some of the people on this list heard me express it badly, and I wanted to clarify. We always used to distinguish hackers from crackers. But cracking reveals the cracks in a way that nothing else does. It makes them real, sometimes laughably or painfully so. Electronic privacy is currently a joke. It's bad. You need to know what kinds of attacks you're trying to defend against. I used to think those arguments were rationalizations. Now I'm glad there are people who know this stuff, who are actually doing it. Some of "them" are on what I think of as the good side, and "we" need that kind of knowledge, if only as an occasional splash of cold water, a spur (to switch metaphorical, er, horses in mid, um, stream). -fnerd quote me fnerd(a)smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham)

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Remailer ideas
by fnerd＠smds.com 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

Tom.Jennings(a)f111.n125.z1.FIDONET.ORG sez >Well, remailers are working, admittedly a bit clunky at the moment, Okay, here's something easy to implement: a "From: stripper" specifically for the cypherpunks address, like, cypherpunks-anon(a)toad.com . The point is that all you have to do to use it is to have the address. The same for the following ideas: Harder: something that takes mail to arbitrary "user ids" at its machine and remails based on them, so you could send to me at, say, sw%%smds.com(a)remailer.somewhere.com . Harder: take a long encrypted address as the user id. Do mail systems allow arbitrary length user ids? Anyway, you'd be mailing to things like: wjefa248hap94ghs39p8g4s9perspe98b9p08serhg9p8serh9sherp9hse9rp89sper898psexrg99p8ser989regp9ser9pys98per9pse8ry9p8sxyer9p8yser9p8ys9per8p9se8ry9pseyr8sezrpahw4pwa49nw84th9w8y34w456yuvw05536vue4w5vw38064vw306uw45(a)remailer.somewhere.com I realize these things have weaknesses beyond the kazoo, but wadaya think? -fnerd fnerd(a)smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham)

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DC-NETS & bibliography request
by Mark W. Eichin 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

This list is the first place I'd seen references to DC-NETS; thanks for the glossary posting explaining what the term is. Is there a published paper on them, or somewhere else I can get info on the algorithms involved? On a related note, is there a "crypto anarchy reading list" or bibliography that anyone has collected, for further delving into the terms brought up? I suspect many of the better references would only be available in electronic form, but they should still be listed... _Mark_ <eichin(a)athena.mit.edu> MIT Student Information Processing Board Cygnus Support <eichin(a)cygnus.com>

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Re: The List is YOURS, So Speak Up!
by Bob Stratton 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

Hi all, After Tim's stirring message about the use of the list, I couldn't help but drop a line to the list myself. I'm yet another person interested in Mac implementations of PGP, and encrypted mailers. I work for a Macintosh software company as a developer, but have spent most of the last several years working with big machines, so I haven't picked up all of the bad habits that I see Macs furthering across the Net. (Most of these have to do with writing unportable code, as if no other manufacturers' hardware matters.) I'm also sort a mailer weenie, so this talk of encrypted mailers has me quite interested. I've started studying more of the fundamentals (I've only read David Kahn's book, back in 8th grade, which was a while ago :-) I'm especially interested in the MIME/PEM issues, and fervently request coredumps from anyone who's been following those to date. My company (which I DO NOT speak for) develops TCP/IP based communications software for the Mac, so needless to say, a nice RSA-encrypted Mac mailer could fall within our purview. My company is also very interested in privacy issues. In point of fact, the VP of Engineering and I recently addressed a Virginia state assembly subcommittee for purposes of having them remove SSNs from driver's licenses.. (YAY!) I'm new to tbe Mac world, but not the mailer world. I shall try to be a resource for this list's work. There's another person here who's also interested in the GUI design for a new Mac incarnation of PGP. I see a couple of possible UI features: - Live folders, for drag and drop en/decryption - Encryption to/from the clipboard (which is basically what I'm doing now, except through intermediate files) - An MPW tool implementation, with pipes. (I suspect that I'd use this mostly for testing the 'engines') I want to reiterate the sentiment posted by several to KEEP THINGS PORTABLE. I know it's not chic for a Mac developer to say that, but so be it. Bob Stratton Engineer, InterCon Systems Corp. <strat(a)intercon.com> +1 703 709 5525 "The Constitution's not perfect, but it's a damn sight better than what we have now."

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The List is YOURS, So Speak Up!
by tcmay＠netcom.com 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

Lurking Cypherpunks, My message earlier today on a scenario for the banning of cash led to about 10 responses mailed to me in private e-mail. Typical is the following (the author has been deleted, as he chose not to post it to the list as a whole): "I'm interested. I was considering removing myself from the cyberpunks list, because the traffic/info. ratio is too high (low?).. I'm glad I didn't, because your message is the type of thing I joined the list to read. I don't suppose there somewhere where I can get a 'condensed version' of the cyberpunks list, or something similar? "I've heard a bit about "crypto anarchy" (only from cyberpunks mailing list), and i'm interested. What's the next step?" You folks out there ARE the list! If there's something you want discussed, go ahead and start a new thread. Raise some issues, stir up some shit. It seems from some of the messages I got today that people think they either have little to add to the discussion, or are fearful of the consequences of posting their comments to a list such as ours. About the former point, all I can say is that the best learning comes from arguing a position and learning to defend it. Merely _posting_ a message generates added interest and piquancy about the list, I've discovered. So consider this an invitation to the hundred or so folks who have yet to post on this list! For those who are paranoid, well, chances are They already know who you are. They have files on you. Remember this, * It is not illegal to advocate violence. AND * it is not illegal to advocate the overthrow of the government. HOWEVER, * it _is_ illegal to advocate the overthrow of the government by violent means. If you stay away from this last item, you're relatively safe. (Even advocating drug use has not seemed to have much effect on the posters on alt.drugs.) In any case, the work being done by Eric Hughes, Hal Finney, and others, should give us fully anonymous posting capabilitites in the near future. Even with digital pseudonyms! (Check out the postings of "Cassandra" and "Pollyanna" for starters.) If the socioeconomic aspects of crypto anarchy interest you more than, say, discussions of random number generators, then clearly you should _post_ on those topics! And if all you have are _questions_, then by all means ask them! Those of us who post frequently on this list cannot try to anticipate your questions and concerns. I've been spouting this stuff for years and they haven't taken me away yet, nor have they [TRANSMISSION HALTED BY ORDER OF THE CRYPTO AUTHORITY] -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | PGP Public Key: by arrangement.

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One Mac feature I'd like
by dkrieger＠netcom.com 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

John -- While using MacPGP yesterday, I thought of a useful feature that (I hope) wouldn't be too hard to implement -- the ability to encrypt to/ decrypt from the Clipboard. This would eliminate the need for saving one's text as a file in order to use PGP... one could Copy text from any text application, open PGP, encrypt it in the Clipboard, and switch to a terminal program to Paste it to a host for mailing... or, one could Copy ciphertext from the terminal program and decrypt it from the Clipboard. dk --

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virgin key
by DELTORTO＠AppleLink.Apple.COM 25 Nov '92

25 Nov '92

Greetings CypherFolk, I'm still in Europe, researching combinations of sleep deprivation and extended train travel, but the time for return to sf.ca.us is drawing closer. I'm still temporarily off the c-punks mail alias due to technical/fiscal reasons so buzz me directly at <deltorto(a)applelink.apple.com> until January 93. Appended below is my brand-spankin'-new 512-bit public key. Give it a workout so I can see if it works (out). I have an interesting keyring from over here if anyone is interested. Will attend meeting anytime in '93 if I'm notified so we can pass the baton -er- floppy. dave del torto -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.0 mQBNAisMWqcAAAECALhs0wMpfVaVFIP/pk3MouI7X8sqpbB6eKiCoVPWBAOeMhB3 bOE8gibIgx5Gg+yTTmp5WOBXzmqmN8s2NPwzoIMABRG0LkRhdmlkIERlbCBUb3J0 byA8ZGVsdG9ydG9AYXBwbGVsaW5rLmFwcGxlLmNvbT4= =cnh0 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY-----

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