August 1993 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Secure voice software issues
by fnerd＠smds.com 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

karn(a)qualcomm.com (Phil Karn) sez- > ...Finding a path through the PGP "web of > trust" back to a trusted public key that the other party already has > may be tricky. This is one thing that is much easier with a simple > tree a la PEM, as you simply give the path back up to a common, shared > root. > > I'm not sure how to do this with PGP. ... Maybe this is a good service for a key server to perform. Are there cases where you would want to endorse a key *privately*? I.e., tell certain people only that you've met someone? > If you first do Diffie Hellman and then immediately use the session > key it generates to conventionally encrypt the rest of the protocol, > including any RSA public key exchanges, this has the added benefit of > denying passive eavesdroppers any information that would identify the > parties to the call. The best an *active* eavesdropper (conducting a > man-in-the-middle attack against Diffie Hellman) could do is to trick > the parties into revealing their RSA public keys, and thus their > identities. But the parties would quickly discover this at the > signature step, before the voice conversation actually starts. What if you prepare RSA key pairs in advance in your computer's (phone's) spare time, then use one per conversation (at least for the initializing)? You would encode your public key with the session private key, and a conventional key with your private key, in advance. That would save time at the start of the conversation (although, to decode his keys would take two regular RSA steps.) Am I wrong, or is Diffie-Helman only useful when you *don't* have a way of verifying who each other are? -fnerd(a)smds.com quote me

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Re: Beepers can also be used to track you down!
by peter honeyman 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

>There's probably a way to disable the transmitter in the beeper, ... i should think that all the second amendment enthusiasts on this list could come up with something ... peter

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Re: Beepers can also be used to track you down!
by peter honeyman 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

> I carry both a pager and a cell phone. phil, i've known you a long time, so i'm used to the fact that you carry a slide rule and a calculator, a walkman and a transistor radio, wear a belt and suspenders, a ski hat and earmuffs, but with this, you've gone too far my friend. peter

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Making the World Safe for
by Duncan Frissell 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com H>As another example, suppose the government banned non-Clipper H>cryptography. H>Despite the brave comments of some, I think it would be very hard H>to overcome such a ban. H>My main point is that we cannot rely on the technology to save us. A H>concerted government effort could, in my opinion, stifle the growth of H>individual liberties that cryptography may offer. Clipper is just one H>battle in this longer war. We can't afford to fall victim to a smug H>confidence that victory will inevitably be ours. If we get to the H>point H>that steganography is the only way to communicate privately, we will H>have H>lost. H> H>Hal Finney H>hfinney(a)shell.portal.com H> Hal, the point is that the government actions you fear are politically unlikely and would be limited to one nation in any case. Par example - humorous letter to the editor in today's NYT from someone I'll call "Clueless in New Jersey." He promotes the idea of a 1% tax on the markets for currencies and derivatives (because they are volitile, unproductive and hurt governments). Even before the passage of such a tax, the currency traders would have relocated themselves (physically or virtually) to an untaxed location. They nice thing about the modern communications environment is not strong crypto, steganography, or anonymous networks (though these are fun) it is the ability to randomie your physical location while still living as full and productive life as you used to live when tied down to one spot. The multiplying power of the new technologies also llows you to "run a Fortune 500 corporation" from your back pocket as informal work groups form and disband as needed. Crackdowns by a single government will just speed up the process of people becoming Permanent Tourists (PTs). The control problems experienced by modern States do not grow out strong crypto (which is not yet deployed) but out of the growing relative power of individuals. Power=Choice=Control. If we have power (the ability to jet anywhere on earth at the speed of sound for 1 or 3 week's average salary) we can make choices and control ourselves. If we control ourselves others lose control over us. The individual's natural organiational superiority over larger entities (my right hand rarely wheels on in to federal court to force me to file an environmental impact statement before defecation) when enhanced by modern technology weakens those less organied institutions. Remember laws are *not* self-enforcing. The success of their legal regime depends upon obedience by the populace. Does anyone out there see obedience and deference *increasing*? I don't. If disobedience keeps increasing, at some point the rules will be meaningless. Duncan Frissell November 10th 1989 - Berlin Wall - Death for unauthorized crossing November 11th 1989 - No Berlin Wall Sic semper tyrannis - "What a Difference a Day Makes" --- WinQwk 2.0b#0

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how does it work
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

In article <Pine.3.05.9308091300.A5374-b100000(a)ra.cs.umb.edu> pbreton(a)cs.umb.edu writes: > 1) Aren't telnets logged, at least at the site you telnet to? If I "telnet > xxxx smtp", doesn't the site I telnet to have it in a log? I can't control > that, and that could identify me. *All* connections to any port can be logged. And if your site isn't entirely under your own control, your site can collude with the called site using the ident protocol to tell the other site the name of the user that the tcp/ip connection belongs to. If the other end has a smart SMTP, it can put this info in the received: headers. I do stuff like this myself using the LOG_TCP wrappers. G === Personal mail to gtoal(a)gtoal.com (I read it in the evenings) Business mail to gtoal(a)an-teallach.com (Be careful with the spelling!) Faxes to An Teallach Limited: +44 31 662 4678 Voice: +44 31 668 1550 x212

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Beepers can also be used to track you down!
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

>Basically, they'd send pings to your beeper throughout the city they expected >you in, then they'd find out which cell you were in. After that, they can >use a small radar-like gun to actually find your beeper, also by pings. >There's probably a way to disable the transmitter in the beeper, but I All you need is a faraday cage, an all metal enclosure with metal to metal contacts between all its surfaces. A Copper brillo type scrub pad, expanded out to make a pocket big enough for the pager.

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Electric Fooling Machine
by Hastings＠courier8.aero.org 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

Homer: "You couldn't fool your own mother on the foolingest day of the year, even if you had an electric fooling machine." > *pragmatic* descriptions of Electronic Democracy ... You're walking down the street, and a gang of thugs jumps out from behind some bushes. Their leader approaches you and says: "Don't be alarmed, we're your very local community - we believe in the noble principle of Democracy, majority rule, and you have an equal vote with each of us." You say, "Whew. I guess my marshmallow-philosophical Libertarianism clouded my vision of the great ideal that is our American way of life. What should we vote on first?" The gang leader says, "Glad to hear someone with confidence in the system. A concerned member of our community, upset at the unfair distribution of wealth in our society, has proposed an equal sharing of whatever cash we have on hand at the moment. Since none of us have any cash, the implementation would require you to give an equal share to each of us. Now, that seems reasonable, doesn't it?" You say, "Oh no, my worst nightmare come true, even while I am awake! But, the essence of Democracy is my right to vote, and if I'm unhappy that I'm completely ruined this election, why I have a chance to get screwed every couple of years forever! But, wait, if this process were AUTOMATED, ELECTRONICALLY, why, I could be ripped off continuously every single nanosecond!" > and to my great chagrin all have been virtually completely > ignored... Could anyone really BELIEVE that high school civics class garbage? >I'm really quite amazed at all the deathly pessimism and antipathy >herein toward genuinely improving our governmental system. On this list, we've all probably experienced firsthand, the joys of "our" government in the person of an IRS (or state tax) agent, and after that enlightening encounter, have sworn uncompromising revenge on THEM, THE ENEMY. Maybe someone had their kid taken from them to die in some stinking jungle or desert. Or maybe someone owns a gun for protection, or has an unapproved hygienic practice (smoking, drugs, booze, midwife, health food) and isn't thrilled with the zero-tolerance, no-conviction-needed asset forfeiture revenue-enhancing scam, or the threats on privacy because of "money-laundering" or "terrorism". Can you stand to watch the "cleared by military censors" media prattle on about how government needs to stick everyone in a hamster cage for their own good without getting totally pissed? If so, I'm jealous. Now, what is the most effective tactic to achieve a universal respect for rights? Oops. Nobody has any rights, that would support Natural Law. We'd have to shovel heretics into the fire according to religious revelation if we accept NL/NR. Begging for our "rights" from the Secret Masters' puppets, or buying "our own" politicians into office, may bring temporary relief, but a lasting victory will come by cutting the supply lines (taxes and inflation) and their brainwashing stranglehold on the media (and "public" education). Digital cash might "nuke" tax collection, as Tim May puts it. Anything other than Federal Reserve Units as the unit of account removes the enemy's benefit from any inflation that occurs. Unlicensed broadcasts (perhaps starting with wireless spread-sprectrum internet extensions) muscles in on media territory and can cause reader/viewers to question the absurd establishment interpretations of current and historic events. >It seems everyone here is interested in debating the issue in >terms of how they see government, how it has functioned in the >past, *irrespective* of any novel mechanisms presented... Gee, if only the Nazis would have an e-mail address, everything would be wonderful. Email: hitler(a)nazi.edu or stalin(a)commie.org. >N. Szabo <szabo(a)netcom.com> [said:] >>* A basic problem with E.D. is that nobody has an >>incentive to vote correctly. A Nobel Prize was awarded to the Public Choice school for just this insight. The selfless, dedicated public servants have the same motivations as the most ruthless wolves on Wall Street. I think David Friedman covers this, and you could do worse than to read The Machinery of Freedom. (This is NOT a direct quote): A political victory is winner-take-all, completely shutting out the desires of a minority. In a free market, if a good or service is favored by the majority, guess what: The majority rules! You'll see whatever they want just about everywhere. But minority tastes will be catered to as well, perhaps not at the supermarket, but in a little boutique somewhere. >suppose that a `vote' is not something static but rather a >pledge of support for a proposal that can vary over time... If this is what you have in mind for political decisions, then you've reinvented proprietary communities, described in Spencer Heath McCallum's (sp?) The Art of Community (1970), which provides agreeable structures to the signatories of their covenants. But you would NOT be talking about the coercive, tax-and-draft, master-and-subject relationships which define a "government." Kent - <jkhastings(a)aol.com>

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Re: Spooking of neural nets and image recognition...
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

>4) placing a magnet on the side of the camera (does this work?) Not with CCD cameras. All the other methods you mentioned require special physical access-- it won't work if one gets photographed while placing post-its on the camera window... The high error rates of image recognition make this whole scenario a future issue. One FAA funded experiment used mice to detect excessive adeneline (the mice go nuts or their heart rates increase just by smelling the excitement); the idea was to catch hijackers who would generally be a bit excited. This sounds obvious boneheaded because of all the people who fear flying...but the stated reason for abandoning the research was that mice don't rate too well as anonymous tipsters! Anyway, the error rate was very high too. However, the whole "profile" thing used by the WoD is essentially a conscious application of generalization that neural networks do. This may expand if "suspicion detection" is socially acceptable--my guess is that it would not be accepted given the speeding ticket automation systems that have been widely rejected (they probably could have gotten it accepted if the reduced a speeding ticket cost by a magnitude and considered it like a parking ticket--but these are legal changes, not technological changes, so they are much more difficult to do). The OCR of cash serial numbers would be highly probabilistic--that is, too many transactions would not be tracked so the knowledge of the flow would be partial. More likely would be that all large cash deposits would be scanned for general analysis just as large cash transactions require that a bank fill out a special form and send to the State. Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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Re: Re: anonymous contact ser
by Johan Helsingius 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

"M. Stirner" <M..Stirner(a)f0.n0.z1.fidonet.org>: > Uu> Here's why. I can't reply directly to your message, as some gateway on > Uu> the way barfs on the ".." in your name. This seems to come and go. > Uu> This is probably also what screws up anon.penet.fi. > > This is extremely interesting! This "problem" was supposedly fixed some > time ago, but this is why I have alternate accounts elsewhere with more > common names. In any event, I will pass this information along to the > proper persons. Well, having ".." in your username is *not* a good idea for most mail systems! > Yes, the zeros are wrong & were inserted by software out of my control. > I also have different addresses, true enough, but there is no f0.n0.z1 > in fido; that address is a software error. I suspect it'll be on this > message, too. Yeah. This is one of my pet peeves. PEOPLE WHO SEND OUT STUFF ON THE NET WITH NON-REPLYABLE FROM ADDRESSES SHOULD BE FORCED TO READ REC.HUMOR FOR A MONTH! So there! > STILL....the problem I have is not addressed: I cannot make a > multi-line header (as in the required "X-Anon-Password: password" line) > work through this UUCP gate, as far as I can tell. > I cannot use password > header lines unless anon.penet.fi can handle having blank lines between > the header fields: It can handle empty lines betwen the header proper and the X-Anon stuff, but not in between the X-Anon lines. > The above header will pass the UUCP gate here. Without the blank lines, > the header gets grunged after the To: anon(a)anon.penet.fi line. What brain-damaged (excuse the expression) gateway software are you using? Julf

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Spooking of neural nets and image recognition...
by andrew m. boardman 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

With regard to the scope of surveillance cameras, the elevators in the GM building have cameras pointed down at an off angle; I thought they would be mostly useless until I was shown the (probably computer-modeled) contoured shell over the lens; on the far and, it produces a suprisingly broad and non-"fisheyed" view of anyone facing the front of the car. Image recognition is currently limited to a book of photos of people they (security) don't want in the building, though... When the real cost of such recognition systems is low enough that such run-of-the-mill rent-a-cops are looking to buy them, we've really got something to worry about. (How nice that Citibank credit card holders are all getting their faces digitized, for their security of course.) [cypherpunks content ends about here...] FYI, the George Washington Bridge carries much, probably most, of the traffic into Manhattan and New York City...) Most? Hardly. Don't forget the bridges and tunnels from Brooklyn and Queens, and the two tunnels from New Jersey, and... Someone I knew in grad school (they, not I) was doing surveys of Manhattan-NJ traffic, and measured some amazing throughput on the GWB, compared with the tunnels. I *was* being incredibly NJ-centric, though... andrew

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