August 1993 - cypherpunks-legacy

Home Banking Patent
by Jin S Choi 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

I'm surprised I haven't seen any discussion of this at all. Is anyone else just a little surprised at this patent? I was using a home banking system in the early 80s; when did this Online Resources & Communications Corp. file for their patent? Does anyone know where I can find more info on this patent? What it covers, and so forth? Is anyone gearing up to fight this?

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Second Tier remailers ...
by kelly＠netcom.com 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

To All, The idea of second tier remailers may be MUCH more palatable to all to run as they add more hops in the chain... as they dont introduce such a visible liability to the operator they could possibly be a LOT easier to propagate than first tier remailers. One additional facility neede is the ability to recognize a signed and/or encrypted control message to update their remailer maps from a periodic posting...maybe this last needs a lot of thought. cheers kelly --

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NSA Requests Delay in CPSR Clipper Lawsuit
by L. Detweiler 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

Tidbits: NSA has classified an `entire Federal program in substantial part' surrounding Clipper. Also, CPSR filed similar suit over NSA secrecy & classification of DES. Note: This is a standard NSA tactic, evasion by delay. They don't respond to FOIA requests in the legislated time frame (1-2 weeks) using the same delay technique. Maybe if we send nasty email to the laywers all will be well =) ===cut=here=== From: Dave Banisar <banisar(a)washofc.cpsr.org> Organization: CPSR, Washington Office Subject: NSA Asks For One Year Delay in Clipper Case NSA Seeks Delay in Clipper Case The National Security Agency (NSA) has asked a federal court for a one-year delay in a lawsuit challenging the secrecy of the government's "Clipper Chip" encryption proposal. The suit was filed by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) on May 28 and seeks the disclosure of all information concerning the controversial plan. In an affidavit submitted to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on August 9, NSA Director of Policy Michael A. Smith states that NSA's search for records responsive to [CPSR's] request is under way, but is not yet complete. Because the Clipper Chip program is a significant one involving the participation of organizations in four of NSA's five Directorates and the Director's staff, the volume of responsive documents is likely to be quite large. Moreover, because the Clipper Chip program is highly complex and technical and is, in substantial part, classified for national security purposes, the review process cannot be accomplished quickly. CPSR called for the disclosure of all relevant information and full public debate on the proposal on April 16, the day it was announced. While NSA has insisted from the outset that the "Skipjack" encryption algorithm, which underlies the Clipper proposal, must remain secret, the Smith affidavit contains the first suggestion that the entire federal program is classified "in substantial part." In the interest of obtaining timely judicial review of the agency's broad classification claim, CPSR intends to oppose NSA's request for delay in the court proceedings. In another case involving government cryptography policy, CPSR has challenged NSA's classification of information concerning the development of the Digital Signature Standard (DSS). The court is currently considering the issue and a decision is expected soon. CPSR is a national public-interest alliance of computer industry professionals dedicated to examining the impact of technology on society. CPSR has 21 chapters in the U.S. and maintains offices in Palo Alto, California, and Washington, DC. For additional information on CPSR, call (415) 322-3778 or e-mail <cpsr(a)cpsr.org>.

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Making the World Safe for Steganography
by hfinney＠shell.portal.com 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

I agree with Tim's suggestion that it would be good if steganography and cryptography tools were widely available, especially in light of the government's obvious hostility towards cryptography. But I can't agree that these tools will be sufficient to bring about Tim's concept of "crypto anarchy", of "libertaria in cyberspace". If we really want to achieve these goals I think it will be necessary to take political action. Technology alone will not be enough. After all, even today techniques exist which would in principle allow a digital cash system to develop. Yet no such system exists. There needs to be an infrastructure, a network of bankers, sellers, users, and other participants. All this will take time to develop even in the best of cases. But if the government is actively fighting such technology, I don't see how Tim's proposed subterfuges with DAT's and CD's are going to be enough to overcome this additional barrier. Without the ability to publically negotiate the tricky issues of standards and contracts, I don't see how a financial infrastructure of the sophistication needed for digital cash could arise. As another example, suppose the government banned non-Clipper cryptography. Despite the brave comments of some, I think it would be very hard to overcome such a ban. Look at the problems PGP has had, faced merely with the relatively weak threat of patent suits (patents which have not, to my knowledge, been tested in court). PGP is constantly being taken off FTP sites based just on letters from the patent holders. Even Tim himself suggested some time back that Cypherpunks should rethink support for PGP given the patent situation. Imagine how much worse it would be if the government actually could put people in jail for using PGP. My main point is that we cannot rely on the technology to save us. A concerted government effort could, in my opinion, stifle the growth of individual liberties that cryptography may offer. Clipper is just one battle in this longer war. We can't afford to fall victim to a smug confidence that victory will inevitably be ours. If we get to the point that steganography is the only way to communicate privately, we will have lost. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com

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ATM AND IMAGE RECONGITION
by Sandy 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT Reply to: ssandfort(a)attmail.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just a minor quibble to Tim May's otherwise excellent post on ATM cameras and image recognition. Tim said: Comment: The case of banks having cameras doesn't bother me much at all, as the bank already knows exactly who its customers are. That is, the surveillance is not used to gather any information the bank does not already have immediate and complete access to. Not quite true. One very good privacy technique is to use an ATM or credit card issued to someone else. How can this be done? Well, a friend (preferably a visiting foreigner) could do it for you. Or you could hire a bum (pardon; "hygienically challenged person") to do the honors. At any rate, you wouldn't want to get busted by an image recognizing ATM, now would you? S a n d y "Privacy Consultation and Services since 1978" (Sorry Duncan, got you beat by a mile) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Anonymous contact service
by M..Stirner＠f0.n0.z1.FIDONET.ORG 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

Uu> Maybe all penet users on the list should activate passwords on Uu> penet.fi. Penet may search back along the chain of addresses for any Uu> familiar address to check against it's list of password-enabled Uu> addresses. Something is way screwy with Penet lately. I have found that I have had passwords required when I had no recollection of installing them. On top of this, I am unable to use the password provision due to header grunging at the UUCP gate, in any case. . I have requested to admin(a)anon.penet.fi that the accounts by number be deleted in order that I can start over with fresh accounts, & despite three requests, this has not been done. Bloody annoying, but I suppose when we give Julf a big raise, _then_ I can start bitching, huh? 8-) . Speaking of related remailers, what is the status of Charcoal? ********************************************************************* * <m..stirner(a)f28.n125.z1.fidonet.org> - PGP Key D30909 via servers * * > What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not <* * > warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit <* * > of resistance? Let them take arms!" - Thomas Jefferson, 1787 <* ********************************************************************* ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 -- M. Stirner - via FidoNet node 1:125/1 UUCP: ...!uunet!kumr!shelter!0!0!M..Stirner INTERNET: M..Stirner(a)f0.n0.z1.FIDONET.ORG

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Re: Spooking of neural nets and image recognition...
by tcmay＠netcom.com 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

>On Thu, 12 Aug 93 18:02:06 PDT, szabo(a)netcom.com (Nick Szabo) said: > >>Are the pictures taken by ATMs good enough for automated >>recognition? >>Nick Szabo szabo(a)netcom.com > >Do atm's usually have real cameras? I always figured most of them >were fakes. > >Mike I'll comment on both questions. First, Nick's question. Yes, the resolution is sufficient, especially since the faces are right in front of the camera. They're black-and-white (so far, but this will change, and the costs of small surveillance cameras will drop further), and of limited res (probably not full NTSC). But adequate for image recognition (though I've not heard of this being done, just archiving of videotapes for some time period....see the movie "Rising Sun" for some insights). Second, Mike's question. I have no idea what fraction are real cameras, but I suspect many if not most are real. Robberies and killings near ATMs are often accompanied with video footage from the ATMs, shown on television. Some of the cameras may now be dummies, but this will likely change as the costs drop further and as local communities push for more surveillance. (Speculatively, I would not be very surprised to see private companies--banks, convenience stores, daycare centers--forced to install surveillance cameras. Big Brother arrives throught the corporate liability laws? Orwell missed this one, though he got so much of it right.) Comment: The case of banks having cameras doesn't bother me much at all, as the bank already knows exactly who its customers are. That is, the surveillance is not used to gather any information the bank does not already have immediate and complete access to. A much more serious situation will arise when convenience stores, gas stations, and the like adopt the same camera systems--maybe they already are--and begin to compile customer dossiers, purchasing preferences, etc. (Credit card and check purchases are already being used, according to a CNN report I recently saw, to compile such dossiers, so that customers can be sent "customized" advertisements reminding them or making special offers. Cypherpunks can avoid using checks and credit cards, for the time being.) Understand that I don't support bans on such surveillance cameras--it is always my choice to patronize a store--but I do object to situations where the State mandates that stores have cameras or outlaws masks and other efforts to hide one's features. -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, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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Today's Quotable Notes
by fergp＠sytex.com 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

Today's "Notable quote" - "... I have to say up front I don't speak for the CIA and this is just me. I can tell you I did my doctoral work studying Soviet-East European personal computing. I have seen export controls and all that close at hand, and actually kicked the tires and things and all that. I can say I agreed nearly 100% with what Mr. Diffie said, up until he said something that surprised me, in that this room didn't shout it down. That was when he said information is less dangerous than physical things. Good God! If you believe that, I'll give you a choice. I can go to your school district and give out one hit of PCP, or I can cover the area with instructions on how to make it. All I'd ask you to keep in mind is to have some sympathy for the foreign policy-niks who know that, in a sort of frustrated air, when it's hard to move information around, it's unlikely that someone can even get an atomic bomb plan, despite the fact that we've got tens of thousands in both the former Soviet Union and in the United States. But I would fear someone giving out the Princeton dissertation and broadcasting it over the nets to all and sundry in that form -- now, given plutonium, we can make a bomb. So, information is a dangerous thing, in the right hands. I think we're all selling ourselves short if we think information is an unempowered commodity. All that said, I have to agree with everything else. Cryptography is not magic, it's math, and DES is not only here, it's on a server in Helsinki, so we have to live with the fact that information moves around. We may want to be sympathetic to the fact that there are people, in fact people without the tools that we all have here, trying to enact the current and past foreign policy. Help educate them, help tell them why these things are happening, but realize that we're disrupting a lot of things real fast." -- Ross Stapleton, Central Intelligence Agency "WHO HOLDS THE KEYS?" Friday, March 20, 1992 Chair: Dorothy Denning, Georgetown University Panel: Jim Bidzos, RSA Data Security David Bellin, Pratt Institute John Gilmore, Cygnus Support Whitfield Diffie, SunSoft, Inc. John Perry Barlow, Electronic Frontier Foundation Paul Ferguson | "Government, even in its best state, Network Integrator | is but a necessary evil; in its worst Centreville, Virginia USA | state, an intolerable one." fergp(a)sytex.com | - Thomas Paine, Common Sense Type bits/keyID Date User ID pub 1024/1CC04D 1993/03/15 Paul Ferguson <fergp(a)sytex.com> Key fingerprint = EE D2 93 7D 04 6D C6 05 AC 36 AD 9D 8E 4F 41 58

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Re: ANONYMOUS CONTACT SERVICE
by an26436＠anon.penet.fi 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

At 6:44 PM 8/11/93 -0700, Warren Keith Russell wrote: >I received a message from System Daemon telling me that I had sent a >message using the anonymous contact service, allocating a code name, and >explaining how I can be reached anonymously. > >What does this mean? Sounds great, but I have no idea how I managed to >send such a message! Probably means someone sent a message to cypherpunks(a)toad.com using that service. The service then allocated an id to cypherpunks(a)toad.com and sent it mail. At 9:08 AM 8/12/93 -0700, hfinney(a)shell.portal.com wrote: > >A few months ago, someone subscribed to the list through the Penet service, >and it ended up revealing the Penet aliases of everyone who posted. Each >post was delivered to that subscriber marked as being from the Penet alias >corresponding to the poster. All it took was a parallel non-Penet subscription >to break the anonymity provided by Penet. > >Has this now happened again? > >At the time, there was some discussion about using "an..." versus "na..." >forms of the Penet aliases, one of which would avoid this revelation. Has >that been taken care of? Now the service requires a password, so we're safe (I hope). Stuff sent by an unsuspecting user through the list to penet will cause a bounce at penet saying something like 'are you new? set your password.' However, the way Julf set up the password setting/using is not totally secure. There is an option where you can set no password which an attacker would find useful. It wouldn't work for a mass disclosure though. The attacker would have to pick and impersonate each of his targets, and unless the attacker can intercept his victims' mail they will get stuff from penet giving them a clue that something's amiss. I suppose this is a worthy topic for this list: How do you have anonymity that allows replies and psuedonyms that can't be hacked by impersonation? One cheap way would be to not automatically include the poster's pseudonym in the recipient's copy - have it be totally anonymous like the cypherpunks remailers. Pseudonyms would be only for replies/return addresses. Actually, Julf's solution isn't too bad. Having your password in plain text on its way to the remailer is insecure, but Julf's remailer doesn't allow encryption, so you're vulnerable to a truly determined attack anyhow. Maybe Julf needs to bite the bullet and start using PGP. > >Again, I'd like to find out who it is, have them removed, and have my >new penet id cancelled. After all, this person now has email from me, >with my penet id on it, with my name signed at the bottom. If I >decide to use the penet remailer in the future, I don't want this >person to have a binding between my penet id and my real name. > > MArc If you'd set a password you'd have no problem. If you got a bounce, you're OK. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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No Subject
by Anonymous 13 Aug '93

13 Aug '93

Is there any reason why a single mail address should have only one pseudonym? Along with declaring a private password, why not declare any number of public names? One password per name would be nice. Another plus - then penet could be chained between cypherpunk remailers. Now this is not possible because it identifies users with their 'From:' field.

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