March 1993 - cypherpunks-legacy

Looking for key-signers in DC
by Joe Thomas 21 Mar '93

21 Mar '93

I finally got my act together, and got PGP running on my pseudo-Mac (actually an Atari with an emulator, but that's another story). Is anyone around DC and available to sign it before I send it to the servers, etc.? Thanks, Joe

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yr mailing list
by alrub＠pro-sol.cts.com 21 Mar '93

21 Mar '93

Dear friends: Please add my name to your mailing list. U.S. snail mail address; Al E. Rubottom 5352 Via Carancho San Diego, CA 92111 internet address: alrub(a)pro-sol.cts.com Thanking you in advance for your attnetin, I remain Appreciateively yours, Alrub ProLine: alrub@pro-sol Internet: alrub(a)pro-sol.cts.com UUCP: crash!pro-sol!alrub

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Problems with pgp elm scripts.
by J. Michael Diehl 20 Mar '93

20 Mar '93

I finally got my mailer script to work. I deleted the -S parameter to less in the perl script. But now, it seems that it can't sign my mail unless i'm in another directory but my home. It complains that it can't find a key in secring.pgp for user 'me'. me is an alias that I use for myself, but even if I send mail to mdiehl@triton, it still tries to find a key for 'me'. What gives? +----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+ | J. Michael Diehl ;-) | I thought I was wrong once. But, I was mistaken. | | +----------------------------------------------------+ | mdiehl(a)triton.unm.edu| "I'm just looking for the opportunity to be | | Thunder@forum | Politically Incorrect! | | (505) 299-2282 | <me> | +----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+

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Re: HIDE: embedded msgs in grphics & snd
by tcmay＠netcom.com 20 Mar '93

20 Mar '93

George Gleason writes: >Re. cyphertext and music: I've been professionally involved in the >recording/production scene and could arrange something. There are plenty of >damn good bands in the Bay Area who might volunteer for this kind of thing; >I can think of a couple of candidates right away. Also a great local >studio, Polymorph Productions, which would be amenable to this. All we need >to get going is for someone to cover the actual cost of studio time, which >is only $30/hour. Now the only hitch right now is my own schedule being I'm all for exploring hiding messages in the LSBs of images and audio (having written on this since 1988, and several times on this list), but I don't understand the idea of putting messages in widely distributed, publicly-advertised commercial or semi-commercial CDs: - if lots of people know about it--presumably the goal here--then why hide the message? (Granted, it'll make some people say "Like, wow! Like, messages, man!"...or whatever the current vernacular version would be.) - how would the key be distributed as widely? - clearly this is not a practical way to steganographically send messages. So, what exactly is the point of this exercise? -Tim May -- 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 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available.

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Future Copy
by Arthur Abraham 20 Mar '93

20 Mar '93

Somehow, I think some of the readers of this list will find this interesting, I don't know why. Popular Science: April 1993 "Color Copiers Countering Counterfeiters An unfortunate result of advances in color copiers is that it is now easier to counterfeit currency. To make it more difficult, Cannon has developed two defenses. One is a currency-recognition technology similar to that used in vending machines. But Canon has enhanced the technology to recognize a bill regardless of its orientation of it it's among a clutter of material. In a demonstration, a Canon official tried to copy a Japanese bill. The copier sounded an alarm and spit out a piece of paper with a blackened rectangle where the image should have been. "Once a bill is recognized, we could do anything -- have the machine stop, sound an alarm, or, it it's connected to a phone line, call the police,' the official says. The copier will recognize as many currencies as possible. A second feature traces counterfeiters of official documents. Each copier embeds a code into the copied image, which is impossible to see. A special scanner extracts the code and a computer program then furnishes the copier's serial number, allowing identification of the registered purchaser of the machine. With the new anti-counterfeiting technology, Canon can also include a two-sided copying feature previously omitted from its color copiers." Of course, the second to the last paragraph is most interesting, along these lines: a. how are they doing that? b. is this preserved on a second, third, etc. generation copy? c. it is likely that computer scanning and OCR defeats this. c. anybody posting to whistleblowers should be aware of these new machines, and learn how to identify them, and their products. -a2.

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We need a FAQ.
by J. Michael Diehl 20 Mar '93

20 Mar '93

I'd like to have information on anon. remailers, news posters an key servers. I know this has been posted here before, but I lost it all and think that this stuff should be kept together for convenience. I'd almost do it myself if someone would mail me the info. +----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+ | J. Michael Diehl ;-) | I thought I was wrong once. But, I was mistaken. | | +----------------------------------------------------+ | mdiehl(a)triton.unm.edu| "I'm just looking for the opportunity to be | | Thunder@forum | Politically Incorrect! | | (505) 299-2282 | <me> | +----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+

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HIDE: embedded msgs in grphics & snd
by The Phantom 20 Mar '93

20 Mar '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Recently George Gleason and myself have exchanged email concerning the embedding of messages into broadcast medium. We discussed options that would confound the traffic analysis performed upon the host medium. We came up with a few ideas that may be interesting to the list. George pointed out what I pointed out earlier - sending the latest Michael Jackson tune over the net might raise eyebrows as well as copyright violations. Being from the 'grunge town' of Seattle, it was discussed that perhaps it would be possible to send a copy of some 'unknown' band over the net without harm. In fact, perhaps this is a good place to start: the underground music scene. gg - "This week on Music By Wire, a new song by the Subversives, recorded at Pretty Good Productions. . ." This distribution channel has advantages over DAT -- no delay and the possibility of a large audience if there was a steady flow of musical traffic. Next, discussion turned to the integration of modem carrier tones as samples in music (rap). If this new twist caught on, the artist could encode messages (in plaintext, or later ciphertext) into the song, including the key on the record insert. What does this do for us? By using ciphertext "... as an artistic product, ..[we] thereby gain another layer of 1st Amendment protection." Free speech. Lastly and perhaps most interesting: I suggested that by using one of these garage bands, we might be able to distribute our own messages on CD. By getting ahold of a local bands' master before they take it to get a record pressed, we could digitize it ourselves, encode our messages (the kama sutra, a message of goodwill, the songs' lyrics, whatever the band wants, too!) into the LSBs and then give it back to the band to press CDs (put the key on the front cover if you like). The band could be told that not only were they certain to sell ~100 CDs (@ $12-$14 each = $1,300 -- no small sum for a garage band) just to cypherpunk members, but they would also be "the first band in history to digitally encode messages into their music... etc." I don't think the ~100 CDs is an understatement, either. How many cypherpunks do we have nowadays? I would be willing to shell over $15 for a (basically) small-capacity encrypted CD ROM disk, even though I personally don't have a player. gg and myself are both rather interested in this last idea -- tweaking with a bands' CD before it gets pressed. Does it sound promising to anyone else? matt -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBK6oMPWSGfFo1zsA5AQEW0AQAqUNNUqdgNyyN2WPGSRx4RCy4umV985CL eHc6TnEsuVDO1InA8nsB4UVh96a3TG/jhSG3xVsGWYt/z5uJbTyqeHtkPWEiLz+j BgR5/mKmeAi0rvFDaIQS1JcoB9gBb3+EFnvOT4RpTtsw+pN5Fry+0PQpQi9zKXbZ pRCGtHKdiiE= =UvO3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Matt Thomlinson University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. Internet: phantom(a)u.washington.edu phone: (206) 528-5732 PGP 2.2 key available via email or finger phantom(a)hardy.u.washington.edu

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We need a FAQ.
by J. Michael Diehl 19 Mar '93

19 Mar '93

I'd like to find out about remailers, reposters, and keyservers. All of this has been posted before, I know. We need to consolidate this into a FAQ for easier access. I'd almost do it myself if I still had the info on hand. +----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+ | J. Michael Diehl ;-) | I thought I was wrong once. But, I was mistaken. | | +----------------------------------------------------+ | mdiehl(a)triton.unm.edu| "I'm just looking for the opportunity to be | | Thunder@forum | Politically Incorrect! | | (505) 299-2282 | <me> | +----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+

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CYPHER: Problems with pgp2.2 ELM scripts?
by R.Tait＠bnr.co.uk 19 Mar '93

19 Mar '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi all, Has anyone apart from me experienced problems with Vesselin's perl scripts for ELM that came bundled with pgp2.2? I'm running ELM 2.4 pl21, on a Sparc IPX, and basically, sometimes morepgp works, and sometimes it doesn't. mailpgp is proving fine. Now, I'm no perl wiz, so I can't really dive in and fix it, nor am I asking for someone to fix it (unless they want to), but it would be nice to know that it's just not my utter ineptitude... ;=) - -- Rick M. Tait Bell Northern Research (Europe) Tel: +44-81-945-3352, Fax: +44-81-945-3352 Network Management Systems <PGP 2.2 public key available on request> New Southgate, London. UK email: ricktait(a)bnr.co.uk || gomez(a)cix.compulink.co.uk || ricktait(a)bnr.ca -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBK6ixmdIfJtINuGaBAQGjWgP/R67RPs45OJLD65ZqtJVKOLpYrwaLQ8cT GOo9Ek9P2flywLt30U+h6/6JOmNCI9UhzeDUKpvnymk4OyReHnayDvtVqjM9c4AL dj+xez2wjFHgxvpOfaAVNGvLlYj5BiVu+D5S3w9laxczT0MvSDTfFhwJFEP+VWxE NbkeIjN4FrI= =/qoI -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Anonymity in the real world
by Arthur Abraham 19 Mar '93

19 Mar '93

Re: Anonymity in the real world John Gilmore writes: >The person who wrote this stuff hasn't thought it through. Any of these >things can and do happen right now over the telephone (anonymously) >and through postal mail (anonymously). Somehow, society has not fallen >into anarchy because anyone can drop a letter in a mailbox. Why not? > >(pause here and actually think about it...) A lot of the stuff that appears on this list appears to come from people glassey-eyed hypnotized by the "power" of the internet, as if society had suddenly started behaving differently because we now type over our telephones. Actually, this is an abuse of a technology, since it's much quicker, and accurate, to talk over a telephone -- greater bandwidth, for those who insist on describing people in mechanical terms. If all our desks were in the same large room, each in its own little cubical, and we communicated by writing on pieces of paper and magically passing them around, the effect would be much the same as the internet -- except that the internet saves about a forest per gigabyte. For those who insist the difference is that the internet is "free", let them remember that each person has either purchased or is paying rent for their desk, but some of the rent is in the form of labor, etc. In this large room there are many people I have never meet, but who still send me pieces of paper. The pieces of paper have names on them, but since I have never meet the person who sends me a particular piece of paper, the names mean nothing; the sender is Anonymous to _me_, though I hope they have some friends. If I get enough pieces of paper from the same person, I eventually come to recognize the name, and form some expectations of what they have written on the piece of paper; then the person is a Pseudonym to _me_, since I still have not yet met that individual. This does not seem to be a lot to argue over. Suppose I now receive a piece of paper that says "Your doom is coming! You have been using my pieces of paper to blow your nose on! I cannot let this insult go unpunished: You will die at midnight!" I could think: well, it's just a piece of paper, there's no particular reason to be afraid of it. I could think: it's a large room, and this sender will have trouble finding me, so my doom will never arrive. I could think: as with most of the people in the room, this sender has never meet me, so my doom will not be able to recognize me. But what do think is: I will arrange to have a policeman at my desk at midnight, since it is still the real world. This is my experience of the internet. ************************************** bandwidth expander: :-) starts here ************************************** Now I will tell a fable about the old use of the telephone. Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, the phone company (TPC) wanted to sell the peasants' phone numbers to anybody the peasants would call. It was an easy way to make gold. TPC said over and over again that peasants really enjoy doing this. However, the peasants didn't want to join in the fun, and insisted on having an option of deciding when TPC could sell the phone numbers -- a cypherpunk might say the peasants wanted to retain control of their anonymity. TPC saw that most of the peasants wouldn't release their phone numbers, and so there wouldn't be enough gold in it, and decided not to offer this wonderful service, and the peasants lived anonymously ever after... ...for about three days until the all the people in the kingdom, suddenly drunk on the newfound anonymity, completely overloaded and destroyed the phone system, by all lifting their phones at once, to place bomb threats. -a2.

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