April 1993 - cypherpunks-legacy

RADIO: keys, ham, and subliminal channels
by elee9sf＠Menudo.UH.EDU 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

> The meaning must still be in clear but you are allowed to send a > authenticating "signature" in code, as long as the signature > contains no information other than authentication itself that was > not also transmitted in clear. That's why autopatch Hmm... if authenticating signatures can be transmitted, then some enterprising and patient cryptographers can also transmit messages, encrypted if desired, back and forth using one of the "subliminal channel" protocols! A subliminal channel allows people to communicate by essentially disguising their true message in the digital signature of the message they transmit openly. It would take several exchanges between the two to transmit a real message, since I recall the subliminal channels I've looked at allow the transfer of a few numbers at a time, but it could be done! /-----------------------------------\ | Karl L. Barrus | | elee9sf(a)menudo.uh.edu | <- preferred address | barrus(a)tree.egr.uh.edu (NeXTMail) | \-----------------------------------/

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On getting local congressional representation for our cause
by crunch＠netcom.com 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

I talked with Congressman Starks office today (My district) to discuss what the possibilities are for them to attend a cypherpunks meeting to hear our concerns, and to find out whats possible and the procedures to get them to attend. We would want congresspersons for each of the districts to attend, and people from each district should write them a letter, and include the possible future dates of the Cypherpunks meetings you would want them to attend. Please allow for about 6 weeks for them to schedule in to attend the meetings, as they have lots of other meetings to attend as we all know. After talking to Ron Dellums and Starks office, their procedures are pretty much standardized, and we should have no problem in getting them to attend of we follow their prescribed procedures. They are MOST INTERESTED in hearing our input on this controversial matter, so lets all get together and compose up this letter, and get them off to our local representitives. Before mailing the letter, one should call the local office, and obtain the name of the person who schedules their public appearances to attend such meetings. Once this name is obtained, include it in the letter, Attention Annie Zaitlan (Starks office). We have to do this for every local representitives office in the Bay area. JD

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fear of the NSA/FBI, etc.
by grady＠netcom.com 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

Some readers have e-mailed me to warn of the consequences of annoying the NSA by QSTing (not "broadcasting" for you part 97.113 freaks) my cipher fingerprint tomorrow at 17:00 UTC (10 am Pacific Daylight Time) on 7265 Mhz and at 17:30 UTC on 14335 Mhz + or - for QRM. You should copy: pub 1016/2EF221 1993/03/16 Grady Ward <grady(a)netcom.com> (707) 826-7715 Key fingerprint = 15 E2 AD D3 D1 C6 F3 FC 58 AC F7 3D 4F 01 1E 2F spoken by my robot after I call the first Cypherpunks net for check-ins. As long as it's legal, fuck the NSA or any other entity that might try to intimidate. The worst kind of censorship is the mind-numbing self-censorship from fear. Hope to net with all you hams tomorrow! With my modest setup I should be able to cover the west coast from Alaska down to LA as far east, maybe, as Arizona on 40m. 20m should be better for people in the midwest. Easterners -- well, we'll see how the propagation is. 73 de kn6cp

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CLIPPER: THe battle continues
by $HOME/.sig 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

> Tim spake: >>George Gleason writes: > >>"AT&T: phones with Big Brother Built Inside!" >> >>-gg > >What a great little slogan! Those stickers that say "Intel Inside" could be >modified to say something pithy like "Big Brother Inside." > >Crypto Yippies (Cryppies?) might even wander into stores like Fry's and >paste them onto the AT&T phones on display. Professionally-made labels >might even remain for months. > >Just another seditious thought. > >- -Tim > > > >- -- >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, smashing of governments. >Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available. >Waco Massacre + Big Brother Wiretap Chip = A Nazi Regime > > >------- End of Forwarded Message Now this is an idea I like... what about using the antitheft-metal base tags that leave a surface impression when removed... it currently leaves a checkboard pattern but that could be reworked to say INSECURE , or TAPPED... then post then on every ATT instrument around... including payphones the front of the label could make reference to CLIPPER and give a voicemail number to call for further info... yippie indeed... cheers kelly

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Press, and a spokesperson and other things..
by crunch＠netcom.com 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

In regards to the name of the group... I think that we should organize and establish a Public relations group NOT associated directly with the cypherpunks, but with well established people in the industry that can and should put on a professional image to the public and be a spokesperson representing us as a whole. In this sense, the name of "cypherpunks" as our group is totally irrevelant. As far as I'm concerned it's just the name of the mailing list, but I sort of like that name myself, and have on ocassion used it in public interviews etc. It is publically known that I'm involved with the MacPGP effort in the cause to put forth my programming skills to better serve the Cypherpunk community. But I decline to be a spokesperson for several reasons I'll take up privatly with anyone who wants to know. With my bad rap, and somewhat controversial past, I feel that someone else can better serve the cypherpunk community in this PR effort. Just yesterday, I talked with Craig Larson who has offered some PR suggestions, and he says that he might drop by the cypherpunk meeting between 4 and 6 pm. In the meantime, I'll try and elaborate on some of his PR ideas with the group. First off, Craig suggests having 3 or more press briefings seperated by about two weeks, with emphesis on making it very newsworthey, and by professionals attening, such as the cypherpunks spokesperson, perhaps RSA folks, FBI folks, and other people on hand to ask the right questions that should bring out these issues to the public. I've delt with the press before, and all they are interested in is RAW NEWS, and anything else to sell the story. In other words, "money talks and bullshit walks". NEWS!! is the key.... The more controversy we can generate (And important issues) the better we will be able to get the word out to the John Q. Public. There are TV interviews, background stories, and lets not forget recent news of matters not so related to cryptography, such as hacker busts, and other newsworthey things related to the computer industry that CAN be somewhat related and tied to cryptography. The goals of the press meeting would be to get the word out to as many concerned citizens as possible with an emphasis on ANALOGYS such as "Clipper technology is like giving the police the keys to your house" or something like that. JD

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Aiding the cause (or, Spreading the word)
by fergp＠sytex.com 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

For those of you who do not receive the comp.risks feed, the Wiretap Chip (Clipper) is debate is taking hold on several forefronts. What this tells me is this: People are starting to realize the negative implications of this Big Brother "technology." I say: Great, but there's alot of eyes to open out there and we need to let Joe and Janet Lunchbucket know how this will affect them. 8<------ Begin forwarded message ------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 12:12:44 -0700 From: Mark Seecof <marks(a)wimsey.latimes.com> Subject: "key escrow" (Clipper Chip; RISKS 14.51) (At the risk of redundancy (with other contributors)): 1. Although gov't press releases and gov't surrogates like Dorothy Denning keep talking about warrants (actually, they say "proper authorization") for Clipper keys, the government has never abandoned (and does not even deny) the practice of conducting warrantless wiretaps for "national security" reasons. How will keys be obtained to decrypt such intercepts? My guess--the security of the "escrow" agencies will be secretly compromised. And then, the time will come when the NSA turns over political or criminal information with little or no "national security/foreign/military intelligence" content to the FBI, etc. My fallback guess is that the Skipjack algorithm will have a back door. 2. The key escrow scheme is a pottery container of fecal matter. Right now in California we are enjoying two scandals involving the release, to unauthorized persons, of "secret" data, by employees of government and private organizations, in violation of: their employers' policies, their own terms of employment, state criminal law, and common (civil) law. These (Anaheim PD employee release of DMV address info to anti-abortion terrorists; various people including police employees giving info to an ADL investigator) are representative, not exhaustive of the problem. Does anybody remember the Walker (U.S. Navy) spy scandal of a few years ago? Walker ring members, despite vetting by the military (perhaps inefficient, but more thorough than likely in civilian agencies), exposure to the most severe legal sanctions, and even the cultural pressures of their military communities, sold out Navy cipher secrets and keys to actual enemies for fairly small amounts of money. N.B.: the Walker ring had no ideological motivations. Anyone who says that the key escrow scheme will protect the privacy of Clipper users is naive, stupid, or wicked. Of course, as someone will point out: "the Walker ring got caught!"--but catching malefactors will not prevent the harm they do before they are detected. 3. The assertion that the government should, by rights, be able to decrypt private communications for "law enforcement" purposes should be challenged. Privacy advocates should not concede this important debate-framing assumption. Advances in digital computing have made it possible for ordinary people to use powerful machine cipher techniques. But such systems will not prevent police agents from eavesdropping directly or by various bugging methods. It may be (I suspect it is so) that depriving the police of convenient wiretapping might have little effect over, say, ten years, on their (police) ability to detect and interfere with criminals. Mark Seecof <marks(a)latimes.com> 8<----- End forwarded message ------------------------- Someone drop this guy a line to get him to join our cause! (Actually, I'v already done that.) We can always use a LA Times cypherpunk, can't we? ;-) Cheers. Paul Ferguson | Uncle Sam wants to read Network Integration Consultant | your e-mail... Centreville, Virginia USA | Just say "NO" to the Clipper fergp(a)sytex.com | Chip...

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Anyone know where I can get a thesaurus by ftp?
by Peter Meyer 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

Note that I need a thesaurus, not a dictionary.

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MYKOTRONX
by Sandy 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

_________________________________________________________________ FROM THE VIRTUAL DESK OF SANDY SANDFORT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Following Harry Shapiro's lead, I did some research on Mykotronx by calling up the California Franchise Tax Board. The bureaurats told me Mykotronx is a California corporation (#1403668) in good standing. Incorporated in April of '87, its address is 357 Van Ness Way; Torrence, CA. They could not tell me if Mykotronx were publicly traded. Its filings with the State are not available for public inspection. S a n d y _________________________________________________________________ PLEASE RESPOND TO: ssandfort(a)attmail.com (except from CompuServe) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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transmitting keys and fingerprints
by grady＠netcom.com 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

uri(a)watson.ibm.com sez: >the keys...In plain English...And keys' fingerprints... I can automatically transmit all the data in Japanese or several foreign languages if you'd like, thanks to Macintalk and foreign language CD training discs... Hmmm.. that's an idea.. I could legally start QSTing the entire public key database worldwide in your choice of languages... I bet THAT would drive the NSA/FBI absolutely nuts... I guess I will attempt a test of that tomorrow during the cypherpunks radio net. 73 de kn6cp Grady For you code freaks, I can just as easily set up "code practice" by piping it all through supermorse at 13wpm -- sure beats those guy who send 20hrs of Biblical scripture through.

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encrypted telnet
by William Stephen Kish 23 Apr '93

23 Apr '93

Hello, I've created this simple little program that allows for encrypted telnet sessions (between unix hosts) without any modification to the system telnetd or telnet programs. The system consists of a pair of programs: 1 running on the target machine (Host B) and 1 running on the machine being telneted from (Host A). (These daemons require no special permissions -- they run as normal user processes. Also, both daemons are really the same program; each is started with a different switch to let it know which hat to wear...) Instead of telneting directly to Host B, the user telnets to a special port on his own machine ("telnet HostA 10000"). This connects him to the encryption daemon. Upon makeing this connection, this Host A encryption deamon opens a TCP connection to the peer encryption daemon on Host B. This Host B deamon then opens a connection to port 23 (the normal telnet port) on it's own machine. Thus, all data from the user is passed to the encryption daemon on its local machine where it is encrypted and sent over the net to the peer daemon on the target machine. There the data is decrypted before being passed to the local telnetd process. Data flowing in the reverse direction undergoes a similar process. All of this is transparent to the user and telnet processes. What I need now is a strong stream cypher to drop into these daemons. Can anyone supply references to apropriate algorithms or code? A good cypher should be resistant to known plaintext attacks, since telnet sessions start out with lots of known plaintext (telnet options, login banner, motd, user id, etc...). If there is interest, I'll look into releasing this when it's complete. Thanks, Bill Kish kish+(a)cmu.edu

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