April 1993 - cypherpunks-legacy

Status of Voice Encryption with PC/Mac?
by uni＠acs.bu.edu 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

I keep hearing about voice scrambling technology in conjunction with high speed modems and soundblaster cards.... Anyone care to comment on the availability of said devices? The Supra people mentioned something, I'll check into it. how about the potential for RAW cyphertext from PGP? Hiding cyphertext in other mediums...? Is any of this available today? uni (Dark)

2 1

more details from Denning
by jwarren＠autodesk.com 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

I've been collecting this flow over the last few days, and finally have a chance to upload it to 'punks. I think all of it is new, but part of it might have already appeared in the last several daze [sic] deluge. If so, apologies for repetition. And, a coupla tidbits about Dorothy: I have known her for several years, worked closely with her on creating the first Computers, Freedom & Privacy conference in 1991, have absolutely the *highest* regard for her integrity, honesty and candor -- and absolutely trust what she says ... even when it's about a subject on which we may disagree. Dorothy Denning is an honorable person with great personal integrity, and I urge that she be treated as such -- even in disagreement. --jim Jim Warren, MicroTimes futures columnist; InfoWorld founder; DataCast founder; founder & chair, First Conf. on Computers, Freedom & Privacy, blah blah blah :-) ============echoing the messages of significance==========

2 1

Wiretapping chip
by szabo＠techbook.com 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

I agree we should write letters, but not (or not just) to government officials. Consider targetting the big phone makers -- both domestic and overseas. Let them know our privacy needs as customers -- that we want secure encryption, that means encryption with _published algorithms_ and without having the key available to _any_ third party, be it the U.S. or any other government, or any nontrustworthy private organization. I almost agree with Sandy that "we've won", but an important part of the market process that brings such victory is giving good customer feedback to communications suppliers. Also for consideration: boycott AT&T and all other companies making phones with the wiretap chip, and let the phone makers know about the boycott early and often. Also I am curious specifically how (a) encrypted international phone calls and (b) foreign-made phones will fair under this proposal (or possible follow-on proposals when they see the weak points in this one). Can the U.S. government dictate key registration to the world? I agree with Perry that "cypherpunks" is a bad label when these kinds of issues get raised in public, and would also add "crypto-anarchy" to that. Our main "talking point" is privacy, and other less popular stuff is best kept -- private. Nick Szabo szabo(a)techbook.com

2 1

Thoughts on the proposal
by Phil Karn 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

Some points to add, some of which I don't think have been made yet. It is entirely possible that Clinton, if he understands anything at all about this proposal, sincerely thinks that he's helping the cause of personal privacy. Consider that his entire education on the subject of cryptography probably consisted of a 5 minute briefing that probably went something like this: The US government is making available, for widespread public use, encryption technology developed by the greatest cryptographers in the world - NSA's. Civilian cryptographers are simply not capable of producing anything as good, so what does it matter if the keys are registered with the government? Users will still be better off than they are now, so what do they have to lose? And I bet that this would sound perfectly reasonable to the average man on the street, too. Well...I'd say we know better. And we have a big educational job to do. We need to let the public know that civilian cryptography is already quite good. Good enough that the communications industry doesn't need any "help" in the form of new chips from the government to secure its communications, thank you very much. And simple and cheap enough that it would have already have been made widely available in products such as digital cellular telephones if the government hadn't considered it "too good" and done everything they could behind the scenes to stop it. Clinton needs to learn that if he *really* wants to help the cause of civilian cryptography, he only needs to call off the goons over in NSA. We don't need their "help". We just want them to get the hell out of our private conversations and our private lives. Phil

2 1

SUBSCRIBE steve@oc3s-emh1.army.mil
by Steve Greenberg 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

SUBSCRIBE steve(a)oc3s-emh1.army.mil

1 0

CLIP: Legal Aspects
by Matthew J Miszewski 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

Clinton Clipper Legal Stuff: With regard to the fear that the issuance of your 'Klinton Key' will allow your favorite TLA to decrypt all conversations taped previous to the issuance of the warrant granting the key, there is precedence that disallows it. In US v. Plamondon 407 US 297, the Supreme Ct. held that *prior* judicial approval is a must for any evidence sought to be admitted. Therefore, while the precedence does not prevent them from actually decyphering your previous conversations, there is support that states it can not be used against you. In US v. Donovan (sorry lost the cite), the court held that the actual application must Identify *all* parties to be surveilled. Thus, the CIA cannot simply run a tape on you and expect to use it in court. It is important that everyone understand that none of these cases *prevent* any agency from *doing* the surveillance, and that probable cause is still an easy standard to meet in order to get the warrant. These cases merely tell you what would be admissable against anyone in court (i.e. this does not affect TLA (three letter acronyms) from blackmailing you or scaring the hell out of you. There is an enormous body of law out there on this topic and could use some guidance from the Cypherpunk elders for search topics. What's needed out there. Email me privately. TOTALLY aside from the Clipper topic: Just got the new WIRED. Excellent article. Groovy pix. Which one is Murdering Thug? 8^) mjmiski(a)macc.wisc.edu CyberLaw, etc. Matt

2 1

Automation package.
by J. Michael Diehl 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

Since I've been using encrypted mail for about a month, now, I've developed a few usefull batch files and telix script files. Would anyone be interested in having them. For the most part, they're pretty simple, but I use them, and they work. ;^) I don't use the perl scripts that came with pgp since I don't trust the phone connection. I xfer encrypted messages and read them at home. BTW, I use 4dos version 4.02 as opposed to command.com as my command interpreter; some of my batch files require features that 4dos has that msdos does not. Anyway, 4dos is a much better package than straight pms-dos. I think we need to develope methods to make encryption as simple to use as possible. Is this something that you all are interested in or am I just blowing smoke? ;^) +-----------------------+-----------------------------+---------+ | J. Michael Diehl ;-) | I thought I was wrong once. | PGP KEY | | | But, I was mistaken. |available| | +-----------------------------+---------+ | mdiehl(a)triton.unm.edu | "I'm just looking for the opportunity | | mike.diehl(a)fido.org | to be Politically Incorrect! <Me> | | (505) 299-2282 | | +-----------------------+---------------------------------------+

2 1

ADMIN: delayed mail yesterday
by Eric Hughes 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

Some of you may have worried that the list was down to due government interference yesterday. The truth is much more prosaic. toad.com, where the mailing list resides, is on the commercial side of the Appropriate use barrier. In order to send to NSFNET hosts, all the traffic must pass through uunet. The default mail router that toad uses, relay2.uu.net, was munged for mail yesterday. All the queue has been flushed out at this point. Thanks to Hugh Daniel and John Gilmore for figuring this out. Eric

1 0

name change?
by grady＠netcom.com 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

I vote we change our name to the "CryptOrchids." Many people like flowers and lots of people don't care for dangling gobbets of flesh. ObCrypt: Leonard Rosenthal of Aladdin Systems, Inc. confirms that the previously strong DES family encryption option has been replaced in Stuffit 3.0 with a system that has been 'approved' for export. However, Leonard asks me not to call it a 'weak XOR' system because he says no one has broken it yet. ObCrypt Prime: I am testing the IDEA block cipher implementations and needs some golden test vectors. I've looked through the postscript IDEA chapter but the single example gives me zero degrees of freedom. I'll contact the inventor if necessary but since we are paying him money for use of his invention, I'd like to offload this from him. Anybody got vectors? (No disease vectors, please).

1 0

RE: Crypto Activism and Respectability
by fergp＠sytex.com 22 Apr '93

22 Apr '93

Let'em all eat cake. On Wed, 21 Apr 93 14:46:55 -0700, <uunet!netcom.com!tcmay> Timothy C. May wrote - TM> Crypto Activism and Respectability, or, Should We Become TM> "Suits"? In a word: No. The name is fine (Cypherpunks), and the attitude is great. There are plenty of us who do wear ties on a daily basis and have our hearts in the right place. ;-) Thanks for the sanity check. You've got my support. Now if we can "Win the hearts and minds" of the public and change the venue of our own Stalinistic government... BTW, who (off-hand) knows the fax number of the G. Gordon Liddy show at WJFK in Washington? I have this fax I need for him to see .... Cheers. -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.2 mQCNAiuk0/8AAAEEALqlLc+x9lmgiJCRSpu/aPhQdi0hMjwiGlN2B/GJQqgZPhTb pR+u5/blGogqT+WwcXZ2XfEdIV19FrJY4BXGGn4+4TjdVN3XuuCHuueoygBAmOQD IloU6SJuDqJa0kFA5X/i/1ELn86I5+8A4Hx88FiYJIVUBR6SApRLcZSdHMBNAAUR tB9QYXVsIEZlcmd1c29uIDxmZXJncEBzeXRleC5jb20+ =0Kua -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- 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...

1 0