November 1992 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Classified info and other stuff.
by John W Noerenberg 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

At 10:44 PM 11/27/92 -0800, John Draper wrote: >Oh, By the way, numerious complaints have been said about the way that >the Mac PGP was stuffed when posted onto "umich'. I will be pushing for >releasing it stuffed with a self extracting archive instead. I also had >problems and lost significant time acquiring the new stuffit in order to >extract it. > >John D. Aladdin makes a freely available unstuffer which reads all their current formats, including self-extracting archives. I found it on their applelink bboard. john noerenberg jwn2(a)qualcomm.com noerenberg.j (Applelink) =========================================================== Do not uselessly lament your luck that is giving way, your work that has failed, your life's plans that have all ended in despair. Like a man long prepared, like a man of courage, bid her farewell, the Alexandria that leaves you. -- "The God Abandons Anthony", Constantine Peter Cavafy [1911] ===========================================================

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Re: Secure key exchange
by edgar＠spectrx.Saigon.COM 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

On Nov 26, Mark inquired about "secure" methods of exchanging public keys. Apparently the only really secure method is a physical transfer face-to-face with someone you know; or to have a key certified by someone you trust whose key you trust. [PGP has key certification built-in; for other implementations, just digitally sign some form of the key to be certified]. There is no secure method of exchanging public keys using only the net. As far as you know all your messages, both incoming and outgoing, are being intercepted by a "spoofer" who will substitute his public key for yours in all outgoing messages and another public key of his for each unique public key intercepted in incoming mail. A few methods were discussed on Extropians of trying to get a genuine public key distributed by outsmarting the spoofer. But if the spoofer is smarter than you, these methods will fail. That leaves methods which exchange, or at least verify, keys by other means than the network. I proposed a service to verify keys by paper mail and (optionally) telephone. Here is an update of what I posted. The offer is still good. ================================================================ I'd like to announce the opening of the Swank Public Key Verification Service. To become a customer, do the following. 1)On a piece of paper put: a)Your name and Network address. b)The "armored" ASCii form of your PGP 2.0 Public Key. c)(optional) Any other information you want to certify about yourself, such as: Home address. Mailing address (if different). Home phone number. Occupation-Work Phone-Work Address. "I am not a law enforcement officer or agent." d)"I certify the above to be true under penalty of perjury". e)A photocopy of your driver's license or other picture ID with signature. Actually this is a photocopy of all of the above with the ID on top of the original. [note: if you don't want to reveal your home address, you can cover that portion of your photo ID. Your name, photo, and signature must show] f)Your signature. (NOT photocopied) g)(optional). have the paper notarized. 2)E-mail to me edgar(a)spectrx.saigon.com (Edgar W. Swank) An ASCII message containing Items a) through d). You may encrypt this with my public key (optional). 3)Mail to me at Edgar W. Swank 5515 Spinnaker Dr., #4 San Jose, CA 95123 Via U.S. Mail or alternate such as FedEx: a)The paper prepared as specified above. b)A self-addressed, stamped envelope. This could also be a pre-paid FedEx envelope. It could be addressed to a trusted friend if you're concerned your own mail may be intercepted. c)$1.00 cash (preferred), check, money order, etc. Payment by check will delay processing until check clears. If you don't enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope, enclose an extra $1.00. That all you have to do. Then what I will do for you: I will visually verify that the public key on the paper matches the key I received via E-mail and that the signature on your photocopied ID matches your original signature on the paper. (I do not claim to be a handwriting expert). I will send to you by return E-Mail your public key signed with my public key. I will send to you in the evelope you supplied (or to the address you specify) a paper about myself constructed as described above (but not notarized - if you want notarized send an extra $10). This will give you a verification independent of the network that my public key is really mine. I will post your machine-readable ASCII record that you E-mailed to me to Extropians and Cypherpunks (optional, specify if you DON'T want this). This feature is subject to no objection from Extropians and Cypherpunks list management. I will keep your paper on file for at least one year. Anyone may request a photocopy of your paper (and up to three others) by sending me $1 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. I will also send your machine-readable ASCII record to his network address, if supplied. Any customer may also phone me directly at (408)227-3471 during reasonable hours and I will verify your/others public key(s) by reading them over the phone. Edgar W. Swank 5515 Spinnaker Dr., #4 San Jose, CA 95123 edgar(a)spectrx.saigon.com (Edgar W. Swank) (408)227-3471 (listed) Cal. Drivers License MO531219 Retired from IBM -- Employee #788281 I am not a law enforcement officer or agent Here is my PGP 2.0 Public Key: --Type bits/keyID Date User ID --pub 1024/87C0C7 1992/10/17 Edgar W. Swank <edgar(a)spectrx.saigon.com> --sig 67F70B Philip R. Zimmermann <prz(a)sage.cgd.ucar.edu> -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.03 mQCNAirfypkAAAEEAKe2jziPeFw6hY19clR2GtQ4gtGCSSVOTgPKEJzHfuC74Scf 9PEuu1kebLhHk43A9wo1vr52o4jpH/P/tnFmRtBQOMzLUzAt5rMucswtSVviMQS2 hBuc9yGJKWHVcyfA79EARKEYTdhx+2qKI+hFJcPE+rmD8wVoF94nNf3ah8DHAAUR tClFZGdhciBXLiBTd2FuayA8ZWRnYXJAc3BlY3RyeC5zYWlnb24uY29tPokAlQIF ECsRFxzidd4O/2f3CwEBsmID/2qXL/VdjGxxYFNIZdA+DC6howUXlHw66MUArILE 2/9J69VvcpbQTKmD4A+04SwH9q8SDzWxsg+1VANuy08EE0up9pm7ZBzrxkFcOydh sEwOt9fRn9EJ3tDNYe1SVoxV9Fc47of55Om7cTNrky0hdp1LA13uf/TeV3nrBYa2 1zaz =IFW+ -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- ====================================================================== Other Options: If you have a listed phone number and request it, I will verify your number through information and call you (collect) to verify the public key you sent me. I will add this as a notation to your electronic and paper record. No extra charge! Another possible option is to use a full color photocopy of your photo ID. This costs about $1.00 at photocopy centers such as Photo Drive-Up as opposed to 5 or 10 cents for an ordinary photocopy. I will also note this on your electronic and paper record. ====================================================================== So far I have zero (0) customers. Philip Zimmerman, in e-mail to me, endorsed the idea, but he has declined to become a customer himself even though I waived the fee for him. Plan B is to exchange/verify public keys face-to-face at parties, such as the PenSFA parties I previously posted info about. Rather than bringing diskettes, I would think printed copies of (armored form) public keys would be easy to handle. I have printed up business-card size copies of *fragments* of my public keys with the 6-hex-digit "Key ID". I think it would be very difficult to generate a valid new key pair where the public key matched the key ID and key fragment. -- edgar(a)spectrx.saigon.com (Edgar W. Swank) SPECTROX SYSTEMS +1.408.252.1005 Silicon Valley, Ca

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My key policy signed.
by pfarrell＠cs.gmu.edu 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

As suggested, here is my key policy signed (not encrypted). It has minor rewordings from my clear text posting of this morning. It and my public key are available via finger. -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.0 owGVVL9rFEEUToKKnm5nIWl8YBPxcjGJIkERlaBoQAKayiLM7b69G252Zp2ZvXOx FTGI/gmKdgER7PwBFnY2YiWCWIggImihqIUSfW/2Ek8E0eVgj5n343vf971dGloY WT+8azST28+Mdq+aj1eGh9+/HBm6e3OufHxh6fu968+e7vi05cGj+5e+fLt96/Om pdnl84cfPpk5sfD6xcSG6MfbrRdXGl8vb96/be7DtSMv36y0b8w+f3dned0rv9HJ ls6V0EP0wP8/J00XsyZamN5dh8mZmamodrotHdAvKyE3SsYlpMYC95G6BfPH5qGD pasDpinGXnYRUmsyDk+ldR4Kh2BSDmxEteOQiRLittAtBOlBavBtyih8YbEOQifQ k0qtRnju3e/qvPCYofacoakWVzNalQFLAAE9uoHjsNhEJbGLixQqQjxf8xCx0d4a pTCBZhkucrTO6KjWaxsCqkWGE9Q7UcjhRq8mN6isxbOFtIRWxDjuzTi/aQIqmBQ0 OQVTYlTDc330NHXeLp2MhQrwuEZbEEEMmBD4nqlgjxHjWqI9FIusYWxrZyCCqTeZ cHCY8Oo6HNg3tXd6X2Nycs/0odhkORFru9igvwdBpJ5EEzyNNAl3ZhwedUJ9BgGh jm2ZezrN0DnRQlLOaSEVCSNVpUDeNhqBUCuCzCz36Vxlk4kKuOnckAe8gXm64FRG TDy5vLKCKoPmQVJtgKPRDuolqVrh12iqB265YHgPAI9qv1EJY8EabKYmQiJdB8iU uaD5d/atEZjORILcWXjyTu65cpcoSstfzqgMQKBp3hIUtsLb9LSLanzPlliLJu8q ITNWMvmjVElFWoUSlvLZ9QEip0c18nleNMnH/UxtPHS06YFMq0xBvqoiQvuesR1e r4IEJF3JWc4VGZK7uN7fisTWmA6JGpucpc15NR3GFkmgFm0Pb6qPK11FVi1QjNbT INzwt4Wp9HXM2gBTtCk8nuOzPp6o9q8fGDbKUWEtKvXvSaeqfWG3rH5wgsg/AQ== =mxji -----END PGP MESSAGE----- Pat Farrell, Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP key available via finger or request #include standard.disclaimer Write PKP. Offer money for a personal use license for RSA.

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my key signing policy, signed
by pfarrell＠cs.gmu.edu 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

As suggested, here is a PGP signed copy of my policy. It and my public key is available via finger -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.0 owGVVL9rFEEUToKKnm5nIWl8YBPxcjGJIkERlaBoQAKayiLM7b69G252Zp2ZvXOx FTGI/gmKdgER7PwBFnY2YiWCWIggImihqIUSfW/2Ek8E0eVgj5n343vf971dGloY WT+8azST28+Mdq+aj1eGh9+/HBm6e3OufHxh6fu968+e7vi05cGj+5e+fLt96/Om pdnl84cfPpk5sfD6xcSG6MfbrRdXGl8vb96/be7DtSMv36y0b8w+f3dned0rv9HJ ls6V0EP0wP8/J00XsyZamN5dh8mZmamodrotHdAvKyE3SsYlpMYC95G6BfPH5qGD pasDpinGXnYRUmsyDk+ldR4Kh2BSDmxEteOQiRLittAtBOlBavBtyih8YbEOQifQ k0qtRnju3e/qvPCYofacoakWVzNalQFLAAE9uoHjsNhEJbGLixQqQjxf8xCx0d4a pTCBZhkucrTO6KjWaxsCqkWGE9Q7UcjhRq8mN6isxbOFtIRWxDjuzTi/aQIqmBQ0 OQVTYlTDc330NHXeLp2MhQrwuEZbEEEMmBD4nqlgjxHjWqI9FIusYWxrZyCCqTeZ cHCY8Oo6HNg3tXd6X2Nycs/0odhkORFru9igvwdBpJ5EEzyNNAl3ZhwedUJ9BgGh jm2ZezrN0DnRQlLOaSEVCSNVpUDeNhqBUCuCzCz36Vxlk4kKuOnckAe8gXm64FRG TDy5vLKCKoPmQVJtgKPRDuolqVrh12iqB265YHgPAI9qv1EJY8EabKYmQiJdB8iU uaD5d/atEZjORILcWXjyTu65cpcoSstfzqgMQKBp3hIUtsLb9LSLanzPlliLJu8q ITNWMvmjVElFWoUSlvLZ9QEip0c18nleNMnH/UxtPHS06YFMq0xBvqoiQvuesR1e r4IEJF3JWc4VGZK7uN7fisTWmA6JGpucpc15NR3GFkmgFm0Pb6qPK11FVi1QjNbT INzwt4Wp9HXM2gBTtCk8nuOzPp6o9q8fGDbKUWEtKvXvSaeqfWG3rH5wgsg/AQ== =mxji -----END PGP MESSAGE-----

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Re: Paranoia and Cypherpunks
by bwebster＠pages.com 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

> (Surely John Gilmore's lawsuit to get some critical crypto papers > declassified has already "angered" the folks at NSA. Are we to > censure John for stirring up trouble? Buy him a really nice dinner would be a more appropriate response. :-) 'Way to go, John! ..bruce.. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Bruce F. Webster | We hackers linger by our leading edge Chief Technical Officer | Forgetting what is pending in the cache Pages Software Inc | Till practice hurtles past us, bwebster(a)pages.com | and we crash. -- Jeff Duntemann ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Secure Key exchange
by pfarrell＠cs.gmu.edu 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

tytso(a)ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o) wrote: quoting: pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu (Pat Farrell) I sign keys only when I am certian that the key belongs to the human who claims to have the name on the key. There are not a lot of keys signed by me floating arround, maybe six total..... tt> tt> Ah, but how do we know that it's really you making this statement, and tt> not some evil NSA spoofer? What people need to do is to make their tt> key-signinging policies available _signed_ with their private key; that tt> way at least we would know that the entity signing the keys and the tt> entity claiming that this is its policy are the same. Exellent point. I'll put a signed statement of my policy in my .plan. It won't add many characters, and anyone can find it by fingering me. (and I've never claimed I don't work for NSA/CIA/...) tt> This helps, but tt> we would then still need to trust that the entity is telling the truth tt> insofar as its key-signing policy is concerned. I can't solve this one so easily. I have two ideas that can help: 1. change PGP in future versions (starting with 2.1?) so it doesn't ask for confirmation every time a key is added to the ring. Make the user do an active action, rather than a half-asleep y<cr> to sign a key. 2. store a comment in my secret ring that is captured each time I sign a key. Thus I could store the "reason/justification" for the signature to jog my memory. I know whose key's I've signed now, but as the number gets bigger, then I'll need a memory aid. I suggest the secret ring, as I share my public ring, and don't think that why I chose to sign a key should be generally available. If this were supported, you could then send me a msg asking "why did you sign John Doe's key?" You would have to compare my answer to my published policy and make your own judgement as to whether I follow it. I could keep track of this manually, and should. But PGP already requires me to have a lot of files arround. Pat Pat Farrell, Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP key available via finger or request #include standard.disclaimer Write PKP. Offer money for a personal use license for RSA.

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Re: Secure key exchange
by karn＠qualcomm.com 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

How byzantine! PGP 2.1 will have a much more convenient facility for verifying public keys that you receive over the network. If you say "pgp -kvc karn", for example, it will display the MD-5 hash of karn's public key as 16 hex bytes. If you know the sound of my voice, you can call me on the phone and have me read off the hash code that I compute here on my key so you can compare it to the value you computed. If they match, you can sign my key with reasonable confidence. About the only way to defeat this system is for the bad guy who feeds you the bogus key in my name to come to my house and hold a gun to my head as I receive your phone call. I would much rather trust a simple verification procedure based on redundancy and close personal relationships than a single, complex, impersonal process involving people I don't know. This is not to impugn your integrity, of course -- I'm simply speaking on principle. People need to be very selective about the signatures they sign, otherwise they will become meaningless. I've already had people sign my public key without any verification that it is legit. This is a no-no. I am bothered by the message that PGP currently generates when it reads in some new public keys asking if you'd like to certify each new key. Even though the default is "no", it makes it too easy to sign a key without really verifying its authenticity. Phil

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Re: The Cypherpunks Mail Project
by John W Noerenberg 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

At 8:07 PM 11/25/92 +0000, Tony Kidson wrote: > >I'd like to chip in here, in my _very_ newbie way, that not >everybody is running a unix system with the ability to pipe >things between processes in so facile a manner. Good point. My vision for the Mac is to have a PGP service with an AppleEvent suite defined so that any other AE-aware program can use the services. This isn't trivial, but it is the right thing to do, imho :-). john noerenberg jwn2(a)qualcomm.com noerenberg.j (Applelink) =========================================================== Do not uselessly lament your luck that is giving way, your work that has failed, your life's plans that have all ended in despair. Like a man long prepared, like a man of courage, bid her farewell, the Alexandria that leaves you. -- "The God Abandons Anthony", Constantine Peter Cavafy [1911] ===========================================================

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Electronic Banking
by ghsvax!hal＠uunet.UU.NET 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

Some time back Tim May suggested that we should do some experiments with electronic cash. He offered to do some Xeroxing if people would "pay" him. There are lots of proposals for electronic cash in the literature, mostly very complex. I think one of Chaum's simpler proposals would be adequate for email "banking". This proposal, from the beginning of his paper "Untraceable Electronic Cash" in Crypto 88(?), goes like this: 1. Alice chooses a random x and r, and supplies the bank with B=r^3*f(x) mod n, where f is a one-way function (like MD5), and n is the modulus for the bank's public key. 2. The bank takes the third root of B (e.g. via an RSA decryption) and sends it back to Alice: D = r * f(x)^(1/3), and withdraws one dollar from her account. 3. Alice extracts C = f(x)^(1/3) by dividing D by r. (Note that division can be done mod n without knowing the factors of n, but it's rather complicated.) 4. To pay Bob one dollar, Alice gives him (x, C). 5. Bob can verify that C = f(x)^(1/3), but he still has to send (x, C) to the bank in order to make sure that x hasn't been used before. Otherwise Alice could spend (x, C) twice. The bank increases Bob's account by one dollar. This scheme is pretty simple and provides untraceability - the bank saw B and D but not C, so although it can verify that (x, C) is legit, it can't correlate that with Alice's withdrawal. The main disadvantage of this approach is that Bob has to send (x, C) to the bank right away (or at least before sending Alice anything in return for her cash) to verify that the cash hasn't been used before. But in email, where turnarounds of a day or more aren't unusual, this should be tolerable. Alice and Bob could be pseudonyms, using anonymous addresses to communicate with each other and with the bank. Different denominations of cash could correspond to different exponents than "3" in the example above. (That is, $1 would use C=f(x)^(1/3), $2 would use C=f(x)^(1/5), $4 would use C=f(x)^(1/7), and so on.) Technically, this would be quite easy to implement, using the code in PGP for the arithmetic, and MD5 for the one-way function. We'd need to define a few message formats. The RFC1113 ascii encoding from PGP could be used as well. The "social" problems are more challenging, it seems to me. What is the backing for this electronic money? Why do people care what their bank balances are? Is this stuff really worth anything? One possibility is to base digital cash on real money. People would open a pseudonymous account via email, then postal-mail dollars to the bank, enclosing their account number so the bank would know whom to credit with the deposit. Later, if someone wanted to withdraw "real money" from their account they would have to give a real postal address where it could be mailed. Now the electronic money is worth real dollars. Even if people didn't deposit or withdraw very often, it still has value because of the backing. Unfortunately, this approach would currently be illegal (at least, unless you actually were a real bank!). If there were some way the bank itself could be anonymous, it might survive, but I don't see how to mail it money while keeping the anonymity. Still, we could consider experimenting with this on a small scale with accounts of no more than a few dollars. As long as it was clearly an experiment I doubt that any prosecutions would result even if it attracted government attention, because the expense involved in court costs would be so disproportionate to the few dollars involved in this technically illegal act. Another approach would be not to try backing the digital cash at all, or rather backing it implicitly by the determination of various people to accept it and perform services or supply goods in return for it. Tim's offer to Xerox papers in return for digital cash would be one example. Perhaps others could provide some other services. It would be great if some shareware author would accept digital cash as a symbol of support for crypto anonymity. One problem that I see with this approach is how you determine the size of the money supply. Or, in other words, how does new digital cash get started circulating? How do people get new accounts, and how much money is in them? If these problems can be solved, a big advantage of this approach is that the banker can be anonymous. He would be known only by his anonymous address and his public key(s). This would provide some safety in the event that even a small-scale experiment like this was targetted for a crackdown. Another issue is the prospect of multiple "banks", each issuing their own (incompatible) cash. How would they compete? Perhaps in terms of rapid turnaround? Some might choose to be anonymous, others would go public. The latter would have the advantage that people might trust them more, but OTOH there is more chance of your bank account disappearing after a crackdown for a public bank than an anonymous one. Lots to think about here! Hal 74076.1041(a)compuserve.com

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RE: PGP on local machine (was Re: MacPGP)
by lasterm＠ohm.ee.utulsa.edu 30 Nov '92

30 Nov '92

folders a

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