September 2000 - cypherpunks-legacy

CDR: Sender: owner-cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com
by malou 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

could you give me some decoders which can decode the satellite like: sky One or others channels on astra or Hot Bird... And don't forget keys for the decrypting... I thank you. My configuration is a pII 233 with 64 megs of ram and a tuner card BT878. If you can give me english links about good vidéo-decrypting for satellite,and if you can find me keys in.VCK or .VCR, it will be very sympatic to contact me ...Thank you a lot... Nucléus and malou...We are french, excuse us for our bad prononciation...Marlyse is very bad in english(Joke) Marlyse(a)worldonline.fr

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CDR: RE: Voluntary Mandatory Taxes
by Trei, Peter 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

Tim wrote > At 10:35 AM -0700 9/12/00, Marshall Clow wrote: > > Refinery: 17.2 [ I'm guessing this includes raw > >oil costs ] > > Retailer: 4.2 > > VAT: 12.64 > > Duty: 50.89 > > > > Total 84.9 [ this is the price at the pump ] > > > >that's 74.8% tax, folks. > > Which is of course what the original article was saying. > > A nit, but "74.8% tax" may be misleading to some. It suggests a tax > rate of "only" about 10 times the normal sales tax (normal in the > States, for ordinary goods). In fact, the 75% is of course 75% of the > final price. Or, roughly a 400% tax on the original commodity. > > For example, imagine a Jaguar XK8 costing $60K plus $240K in taxes. > 75% in taxes would suggest 60K plus 45K. The oil situation is 400% in > taxes. > A nit on a nit: This is ~300% tax, not ~400%. Consider: 10 pounds worth (to the refiner/dealer) of petrol yeilds s the British government about 30 pounds of taxes. ie, 300% of the cost of the item. It's still mind-boggling that a nominally free people will put up with this kind of organized theft. Peter > Welcome to statism. > > > --Tim May >

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CDR: REPLY REQUIRED: Subscription to TheBlackList News Information -eMail offered
by TheBlackList -eMail News, Kwasi Akyeampong 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

Hello, TheBlackList -eMail News, Kwasi Akyeampong, the owners of the email list 'TheBlackList News Information -eMail', are inviting you to join this list at Topica. Here's the description of the list: TheBlackList is a moderated email list that informs the African Nationalist and the Afro-Centric about issues relevant to our cause. No Cause is local. If it concerns you, it concerns us, ALL Africans - those at home and those abroad. TO SUBSCRIBE TO THIS LIST: Simply click reply in your email program, and then send - we'll automatically add you to the list. If this list does not interest you (or you do not want to join the list at this time), just ignore this message and you will not be added. If you have any questions about the list, you can contact the list owners at any of these addresses: TBLeNews(a)earthlink.net, mgbbs(a)juno.com. Thank you, Natasha Topica Customer Support

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ANNOUNCE: OpenSSL 0.9.6 Beta 1
by Richard Levitte 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

OpenSSL version 0.9.6 Beta 1 ============================ OpenSSL - The Open Source toolkit for SSL/TLS http://www.openssl.org/ OpenSSL is currently in a release cycle. The first beta is now released. This beta is in fact two releases, one for the current mainstream OpenSSL, and one with an "engine" branch incorporated. The "engine" branch contains an interface to external crypto libraries, which is currently used to support the hardware devices CryptoSwift (by CryptoSwift Inc), Atalla (by Compaq) and CHIL (previously called HWCryptoHook, by nCipher) as well as the internal OpenSSL routines. The two beta releases are available for download via HTTP and FTP from the following master locations (the various FTP mirrors you can find under http://www.openssl.org/source/mirror.html) o http://www.openssl.org/source/ o ftp://ftp.openssl.org/source/ The file names of the two betas are: o openssl-0.9.6-beta1.tar.gz o openssl-engine-0.9.6-beta1.tar.gz Please download and test it as soon as possible. This new OpenSSL version incorporates 75 changes and bugfixes to the toolkit (for a complete list see http://www.openssl.org/source/exp/CHANGES) Yours, The OpenSSL Project Team... Mark J. Cox Richard Levitte Andy Polyakov Ralf S. Engelschall Bodo Möller Holger Reif Dr. Stephen Henson Ulf Möller Geoff Thorpe Ben Laurie -- Richard Levitte levitte(a)openssl.org OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org/~levitte/ Software Engineer, Celo Communications: http://www.celocom.com/

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CDR: Re: "ChronoCryption" algorithm - $50 reward for spotting a flaw
by lcs Mixmaster Remailer 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

Ray Dillinger writes: > In the interest of making some news if you don't like the news > you're getting, I present -- the Country Mile Cipher. Algorithm > details available (for now) on > > http://www.sonic.net/~bear/crypto/countrymile.html > > This is a stream cipher based on the Blum-Blum-Shub pseuodo- > random number generator -- and on work done more recently by > Ronald Rivest, who "digitally sealed" a message that he expects > to take 30 years of continuous computing to unscramble. Your idea is to take BBS as a stream cipher, use a value based on a secret short key as a starting point, and then cycle it potentially a whole lot, millions or billions of cycles or more, before beginning to cipher the message with it. Using the idea of Rivest et all you can cycle BBS forward arbitrarily far in a limited amount of work, if you know the modulus factors. So you can encrypt with little work, while making the decryptor do an arbitrary amount of work even if he knows the key. You've combined the idea of time lock crypto with an encryption function. It's not clear these two ideas go all that well together, like the SNL product that was both a floor wax and a dessert topping. Usually you either want to encrypt, in which case you want to make it easy to decrypt for the guy who knows the key, or you want to time-lock, in which case you want to control how hard it will be to find the key. There don't seem to be that many cases where you want to allow decryption but only if you both know the key and are willing to put in a lot of time. Even if you did want to do that, you could just use Rivest's time lock to hide a key which then gets combined with your short key to produce the actual key to the message. Along these lines your own idea could be simplified; don't encipher the whole message using BBS, just encipher a block-cipher key and use 3DES or similar to encipher the message. You might also want to take a look at the paper by Dan Boneh and Moni Naor from Crypto 2000, http://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/abstracts/timedcommit.html. They have a similar idea but came up with an application for it in fair contract signing (where one party should not end up with the signature on a contract unless the other party does too). For their application they need to be able to encrypt a message such that it can only be decrypted with a specified large amount of work. However they must be able to reveal the encrypted message and prove that the decryption was accurate, using a small amount of work. This could be done in your scheme simply by revealing the modulus factors (the "long key") but they want to reuse the modulus so they use some fancy zero knowledge proofs.

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CDR: DNA
by Michael Motyka 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

Does UV light destroy DNA? I know it is a reasonable way to sterilize water ( with some caveats ) which it does by denaturing proteins. If DNA is also destroyed would not a baseball eventually become invalidated just by sitting on a shelf? What other weaknesses are there? As someone wears and handles clothing, washes it along with clothing worn by others wouldn't the DNA become damaged or contaminated? Is it only useful as a mfr to retail validation? Sounds trendy but I'd bet it has problems.

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REJECTED MESSAGE: REJECTED MESSAGE: REJECTED MESSAGE: CDR: Re: Voluntary Mandatory Taxes
by postmaster＠engmail1.Eng.Sun.COM 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

Your message has been rejected and is being returned because it appears to be a reply to an alias that is designed for one-way communication only. You should reply only to the sender of a message sent to one-way aliases. If you wish to complain about abuse of a one-way alias, you should send E-mail to the postmaster of your domain. For example, postmaster@Eng. If your E-mail was addressed to more than one alias protected by this filter then you will get a copy of this message for each protected alias. Thank you for your cooperation and consideration, -- Postmaster P.S. This is an automatically generated message. -----------------Begin Returned Message------------------- Your message has been rejected and is being returned because it appears to be a reply to an alias that is designed for one-way communication only. You should reply only to the sender of a message sent to one-way aliases. If you wish to complain about abuse of a one-way alias, you should send E-mail to the postmaster of your domain. For example, postmaster@Eng. If your E-mail was addressed to more than one alias protected by this filter then you will get a copy of this message for each protected alias. Thank you for your cooperation and consideration, -- Postmaster P.S. This is an automatically generated message. -----------------Begin Returned Message------------------- Your message has been rejected and is being returned because it appears to be a reply to an alias that is designed for one-way communication only. You should reply only to the sender of a message sent to one-way aliases. If you wish to complain about abuse of a one-way alias, you should send E-mail to the postmaster of your domain. For example, postmaster@Eng. If your E-mail was addressed to more than one alias protected by this filter then you will get a copy of this message for each protected alias. Thank you for your cooperation and consideration, -- Postmaster P.S. This is an automatically generated message. -----------------Begin Returned Message------------------- In article <a0431010cb5e346ed8216(a)[207.111.241.215]>, Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> wrote: > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13169.html > > "Here's something to think about - while queuing up for petrol this > afternoon (yes - I confess to being a panic buyer) I worked out that > OPEC is charging $30 a barrel and our government is taxing us at > slightly over $150 a barrel - ouch!" $30 (now $35) is the price of a barrel of *light sweet crude*, not the price of a barrel of refined gasoline. -- Shields.

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CDR: hawking DNA as unique IDs
by A. Melon 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

Latest Use for Ones DNA -- Thwarting Counterfeiters Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, September 11, 2000 Syd the platypus, Millie the echidna and Olly the kookaburra have a secret weapon to foil counterfeiting crooks. The furry mascots of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney -- as well as an avalanche of caps, T-shirts, mugs, pins and other official Olympics merchandise -- are being tagged with invisible ink containing DNA strands from an unidentified Australian athlete. The goal is to thwart increasingly sophisticated forgers trying to get a piece of the $389 million market for Olympics keepsakes. High-quality infringements have increased during the past couple of months leading up to the games, said Catherine McGill, legal counsel and brand protection manager for the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. Detail-oriented counterfeiters copy the swing tags, sewn-in labels and packaging. That is where the DNA comes into its own as being the absolutely foolproof, sure way to determine if something is fake. Other ways to combat counterfeiting, such as holograms, can be duplicated by determined bootleggers. The DNA-laced ink is being applied to most of the 3,500 official souvenirs -- some 50 million individual items. Its the largest deployment ever of DNA as a security device. McGill oversees a team of 60 logocops equipped with special scanners that can detect the DNA ink. The logocops will roam Sydney and other Australian cities, pouncing on street vendors and retail outlets to determine whether their merchandise is authentic. Australian customs officials have already seized more than 120,000 phony Olympics souvenirs worth millions of dollars that were being sent into the country from overseas, largely from Asia, she said. DNA Technologies of Los Angeles is the company behind the initiative, which reportedly costs about 5 cents per item. Chris Outwater, president of DNA Technologies, said the process involves extracting DNA from a blood sample, taking a fraction of it, then amplifying it and adding a small amount to the invisible ink. Some junk DNA is also thrown into the mix as a red herring, he said. Theres no way someone could take (a sample tag) and reproduce the mark, he said. Imagine standing outside the New York City Public Library and challenging a counterfeiter: Im using one sentence from one book inside that library you find that sentence. Thats how daunting it would be for someone to figure out what the code is. Using DNA, the unique biological signature of each human, for such a commercial purpose signifies how society has come to view DNA as a magic potion, said Susan Lindee, co-author of The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon, a 1995 book. Its the commercialization of the genome to the most ridiculous degree, she said. Promoters have been successful at weaving into popular culture the idea that DNA is the ultimate arbiter of whats true, authentic, real. She challenged Outwaters assertion that a DNA security code would be counterfeit-proof. Most people dont have that kind of technical expertise, but if theyre only using a sequence there are plenty of individuals who could be hired (to duplicate it), she said. If it became truly profitable -- lets say all designer clothing were tagged with DNA -- thered be somebody who had a financial stake in figuring out how to copy the DNA and fake it. Outwater said some well-known designer brands have adopted the technology on sewn-in labels, but prefer not to publicize it. He hopes to extend the technology to such areas as pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, and to secure documents and financial instruments, including passports, currency and ID cards. A reliable, duplication-proof means of authenticating goods is sorely needed. Counterfeit goods in the United States amount to some $200 billion a year. Fine arts and sports collectibles are areas where authentication is crucial. Artist Thomas Kinkade incorporates some of his own DNA into the signatures inked on his artwork. PSA/DNA Authentication Services of Newport Beach (Orange County) licenses the DNA Technologies product to authenticate sports memorabilia and autographs. After starting with Mark McGwires record-setting 70th home-run ball, it next tagged Hank Aarons 715th home-run ball and bat, and now broadly uses the technology. Major League Baseball asked us to authenticate all the game balls used during the World Series, said Jason Meyerson, PSA/DNA president. We can apply the DNA onto the surface of any collectible with a custom-made felt-tip pen. The company will provide representatives to stand next to Joe Montana as he signs autographs and mark each one with the invisible DNA ink, Meyerson said. Whats beautiful about it is that its permanent, nontransferable and invisible.

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CDR: [OT] California senator tries to mandate remote kill switches for
by Trei, Peter 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

The California legislature recently considered a law (it apparently died in committee this year) which would mandate that all cars in the state be fitted with a device, which upon recieving an encrypted signal by laser or radio, would kill the engine. The apparent goal is to prevent car chases. The, bill, introduced by (State?) Senator Speier, is at http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_2001-2050/sb_2004_bill_20000504_amend ed_sen.html There is substantial discussion at http://www.technocrat.net/968678895/index_html The bill requires that cars sold in the state after 2004 have the system, and cars registered after 2007 be retrofitted if neccessary. It would be a crime to fail to fit or maintain it, or to bypass it. It includes a provision to allow any peace officer to stop any car at any time to inspect the system, without any mention of warrants or probable cause. I may write something for RISKS Digest about this. Peter Trei

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CDR: Attention: Any! sun.com users of the CDR
by Jim Choate 12 Sep '00

12 Sep '00

Hi, I am receiving a bunch of bounces from some user at an unknown sun.com address. There is apparently a 'private' or 'internal' mailing list subscribed to SSZ. And then that list sends to some user at sun.com. Unfortunately the address is not one setup to receive email. I have no direct subscribers to sun.com. This means the only option I have is to go through the subscriber list one at a time and remove each subscriber and send a test message till it bounces. At that point I'll have to remove that entire alias. This will effect more than this single recipient. I have contacted sun.com requesting they verify their address is 'send only'. If you happen to be a sun.com user you might want to look into it as well. ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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