December 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: End-to-end encrypting US GSM phones?
by Trei, Peter 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

> Lucky Green[SMTP:shamrock@cypherpunks.to] > > > Ryan wrote: > > "Everyone" has palm pilots already. WinCE-based PocketPCs > > haven't made much of a dent in the marketplace. There is > > also a very large developer community for palm apps, and > > they're widely deployed in > > corporations. > > I am not sure that the existance of a large developer community has much > bearing on the suitability of Palm as an encrypting phone platform. As > for the hardware, it simply is underpowered. You can spend man-months > trying to fight the current underpowered Palm platform or you can use > the sufficiently-resourced PowerPC platform. Since I don't believe that > there is a requirement for the feature to operate on a device already in > the user's possession, I know what my choice would be. YMMV. > It's a fact that there is a much larger developer community for the Palm than for the Ipaq, however, I suspect that this is a temporary phenomenon. MS is giving away it's development environment for free, and as pointed out, there is are several Linux ports. The higher cost of PocketPC devices can be balanced against their higher power. Let's remember that for a specific app, we don't actually *need* more than one programmer. > > If you're assuming users will buy a dedicated device *and* > > put linux on it, that's reasonable (or sell pre-packaged > > systems). Otherwise, you also need to develop for WinCE on > > the PocketPC. > > The OS is really of secondary or tertiary concern here. The more > important question is which (if any) handheld hardware supports > full-duplex audio. Do we know for fact that the lack of full duplex > audio support on the VoIP handheld demo is due to lack of support in the > HW or could it be a lack of support in the WinCE OS? > I could care less if I have to program under WINCE or Linux; some OSs require a bit more learning before I'm productive, but any programmer who can't pick up another environment quickly isn't worth his salt. Doing it under WINCE (or both Linux and WINCE) has the advantage that the app develops a user base much more quickly. As for hardware limitations; I havent verified this independently, but this is from the Stanford project cited earlier: > "An investigation of the audio capture and playback capabilities of the Compaq iPAQ revealed that the speaker and microphone on the PDA are the same hardware device, and cannot both be in use at the same time. As a result, the system had to be engineered such that only one of audio playback and audio capture happens at any one time." > --Lucky > Peter ============================================================================ ================ This e-mail, its content and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the addressee(s) and are PRIVILEGED and CONFIDENTIAL. Access by any other party is unauthorized without the express prior written permission of the sender. If you have received this e-mail in error you may not copy, disclose to any third party or use the contents, attachments or information in any way, Please delete all copies of the e-mail and the attachment(s), if any and notify the sender. Thank You. ============================================================================ ================

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Have good credit? FREE Credit report!!!
by creditguy＠einstein.ssz.com 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

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Re: End-to-end encrypting US GSM phones?
by Ryan Lackey 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

Quoting Trei, Peter <ptrei(a)rsasecurity.com>: > I don't quite understand why getting encrypted VoIP working on a Palm Pilot > (16-33 MHz dragonball) is the 'Holy Grail'. I would have said that the HG is > an affordable, working, portable and pocketable encrypted VoIP system with > free software, regardless of platform. The Ipaq is 2-300$ more than a Palm > device, but is that the whole issue? Ipaqs have much better cpu power > and memory, and decent Linux ports. Go for the low-hanging fruit first. "Everyone" has palm pilots already. WinCE-based PocketPCs haven't made much of a dent in the marketplace. There is also a very large developer community for palm apps, and they're widely deployed in corporations. If you're assuming users will buy a dedicated device *and* put linux on it, that's reasonable (or sell pre-packaged systems). Otherwise, you also need to develop for WinCE on the PocketPC. I still would like to see from someone who is good at integer voice encoding whether a 33MHz dragonball can do tolerable-quality voice at 14.4kbps; I'm sure it's good enough to distinguish "ki" from "eight-ball", but I'd like something good enough to distinguish "weight, y'all" from "eight-ball" Since it's very unlikely any pda will have full duplex audio anytime soon, I think the bluetooth headset is the only viable solution; I'm going to get one for my t39m soon enough, and then I'll experiment with linux bluetooth support and try to get bluetooth audio integrated into OSS on my laptop, as a proof of concept. That done, it's just a question of running linux on an ipaq for a simple demo, with libgsm compiled as integer; then maybe something more efficient. I'm pretty sure someone has made the bluetooth headset work with linux already, so it's just a question of kernel patches. The security of this would depend somewhat on the bluetooth encryption, although I'd be happier trusting unencrypted but low-propagation bluetooth vs. a PSTN/cell link. -- Ryan Lackey [RL7618 RL5931-RIPE] ryan(a)havenco.com CTO and Co-founder, HavenCo Ltd. +44 7970 633 277 the free world just milliseconds away http://www.havenco.com/ OpenPGP 4096: B8B8 3D95 F940 9760 C64B DE90 07AD BE07 D2E0 301F

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RE: brinworld, sexchart
by Trei, Peter 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

Well, that's cute, but there were non-internet versions in SF fandom over twenty years ago. I suppose the compiler will now seek a business method patent on this 'new invention'. Peter Trei > ---------- > From: David Honig[SMTP:honig@sprynet.com] > Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2001 11:35 AM > To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com > Subject: brinworld, sexchart > > Wired interview with creator of sexchart > http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48997,00.html > > The graph: > http://www.attrition.org/hosted/sexchart/sexchart.9.25 > > Relevence to Brin's _Transparent Society_ etc should be obvious. > > > > > ============================================================================ ================ This e-mail, its content and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the addressee(s) and are PRIVILEGED and CONFIDENTIAL. Access by any other party is unauthorized without the express prior written permission of the sender. If you have received this e-mail in error you may not copy, disclose to any third party or use the contents, attachments or information in any way, Please delete all copies of the e-mail and the attachment(s), if any and notify the sender. Thank You. ============================================================================ ================

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Clarification for cpunks_anon@einstein.ssz.com
by Jim Choate 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

This alias into the CDR is NOT intended as a general anonymizing feature (irrespective of whether I happen to delete logs or not). It is ONLY meant to obfuscate the source of traffic from current list subscribers (not parties outside the list which might be using technical or other means to execute traffic analysis). If you need true anonymity then please consider using the following: - Always(!) use 'throw away' or 'one shot' accounts. NEVER use the same account or physical access point twice. NEVER use an account you pay for with a check or credit card. Remember that video is quite prevelant in todays society so be aware that identifying the location of the source, even if financial instruments aren't used, may be sufficient to identify you. - Use an anonymizing service outside of the SSZ domain to increase the points of attack required to uncover the source. - Modify your text style; review favorite words or phrases and avoid them completely. If possible run your text through a translation service (eg source -> Spanish -> source) and then edit the resultant. If you do use an online translation service use an anonymizing service for this access as well. - Don't use sig's and such. - Avoid closed source software as there is a history for this class of technology to add identifying items to the material they generate. In an ideal world you would compile the source yourself after reviewing the source code (including the compiler mind you). However, given the general state of technical skills, this is not likely. One approach might be to take binaries, of the same rev level and compiled with the same compiler and library rev's, of a given tool from different sites and then compare them for any differences. -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: End-to-end encrypting US GSM phones?
by Trei, Peter 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

> ---------- > From: Steve Schear[SMTP:schear@lvcm.com] > Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2001 5:32 PM > To: Lucky Green > Cc: cypherpunks(a)lne.com > Subject: Re: End-to-end encrypting US GSM phones? > > At 09:19 PM 12/30/2001 +0100, you wrote: > >On Sat, 29 Dec 2001, Ryan Lackey wrote: > > > > > I'm unclear why Lucky dislikes the Sectra Tiger (www.sectra.se) the > > > key management is not what I'd like, but seems designed specifically > > > for hierarchical military or corporate organizations, which is the > only > > viable > > > market for a EUR 2500 encrypting cellphone. > > > >The reason why I have little faith in the Sectra Tiger is because I > talked > >with one of Sectra's head cryptographers. Below is a brief recap of the > >conversation: > > <recap with clueless crypto engineer deleted> > > OK, so why don't we pool our funds to encourage the reverse engineering > and > release of source code to a popular PCS/GSM phone which can be readily > re-flashed and with sufficient resources (or easily augmented) to handle > this app? I'll donate $100 e-gold to get the fund going. I'll establish a > > publicly viewable e-gold account to hold other contributions. The account > > access key can be secret shared among a few fellow CPs. > > steve > Ryan suggested earlier that the Ipaq with Fireball isn't up to the task. I don't think this is correct. I point you to http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs344/staff/group10/final_report.pdf in which some Stanford students produce a wireless ipaq2ipaq VoIP system. Biggest problem is that it's simplex, not because of cpu limitations but rather that the Compaq HW can listen or make noise, but not both simultaneously. Using a headset which interfaces through the expansion port might enable you to avoid this problem (and the BT headset could also offload the codec). A 206 MHz Ipaq would, I think have sufficient HP to do the crypto. I've toyed with the idea of porting SpeakFreely to Ipaq, but have not actually done anything at this point. I've x-posted to coderpunks, since that group is more germane. Serious further discussion should be over there, IMHO. Peter Trei ============================================================================ ================ This e-mail, its content and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the addressee(s) and are PRIVILEGED and CONFIDENTIAL. Access by any other party is unauthorized without the express prior written permission of the sender. If you have received this e-mail in error you may not copy, disclose to any third party or use the contents, attachments or information in any way, Please delete all copies of the e-mail and the attachment(s), if any and notify the sender. Thank You. ============================================================================ ================

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Slashdot | The Year in Internet Law
by Jim Choate 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

http://slashdot.org/articles/01/12/31/0451244.shtml -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Deported from Utopia
by mattd 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

In utopia by annalee newitz MY OLD FRIEND Joe Sartelle (www.sartelle.org) used to ask people what their textual preferences were. In a way, that is a far more intimate question than the commonly heard "What is your sexual preference?" One's gender choice in sex partners reveals almost nothing save what kinds of bodies you enjoy but one's choice of texts, of stories, can summarize an entire personality. My greatest and earliest textual love is science fiction. Nothing has the power to move me more than a well-crafted tale about an alien world or future. And in times of great stress, I turn to science fiction for solace, for alternative ways of thinking. Last week I was lucky enough to spend some time talking about alternative cultures with Ursula Le Guin, whose radical, speculative fiction has been my preference since I was a kid. Her most recent novels, The Telling (2000) and The Other Wind (2001), offer powerful stories of hope in the face of war and terrorism on other planets. Le Guin is also the author of celebrated works of social-protest science fiction, such as The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Dispossessed (1974), and Always Coming Home (1985). When the future feels horrifying, one wants to hear about utopia, and Le Guin is often called a utopian writer. I wondered what a utopian would think about America's current "war on terrorism." Laughing, Le Guin said, "Don't call me utopian. Utopia is always something you can't get to because it doesn't exist. I prefer to be called hopeful. We can hope that we might get out of this mess, or that decent behavior might take place, because, well, it does sometimes." It's hard to imagine decent behavior when Bush is threatening violence. It feels like there are no alternatives, no other ways the story could end. And that's where fiction can be useful. It invites us to speculate about other narrative options. In The Telling, Le Guin's protagonist is Sutty, a scholar who comes to a planet called Aka whose government has been taken over by ruthless, techno-worshipping capitalists known as the Corporation. Sutty is perplexed by the monoculture of Aka until she finds out that the Corporation has been violently suppressing the peaceful, spiritual people who follow the old ways of the planet. Those people have maintained an anticorporate, ecologically balanced culture in the face of brutal oppression and have even created a massive, secret library of books that contradict the Corporation's views. As Sutty learns more, it's clear that Aka's destiny is hardly in the hands of the Corporation, and resistance is not futile. More on http://www.sfbg.com/SFLife/tech/78.html

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Terrorists of a feather
by mattd 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

In Life of Double-Crosses, Egyptian Worked With Green Berets and Bin Laden SHARON THEIMER Associated Press Writers By Tom Hays and Published: Dec 29, 2001 When the Green Berets needed insight on the Middle East, they turned to one of the U.S. Army's own: Sgt. Ali Mohamed. When Osama bin Laden wanted help training troops and raising money for his al-Qaida terrorist network, he enlisted the same man, known as "Abu Mohamed ali Amriki," or "Mohamed the American." Now in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location, the Egyptian-born Mohamed, 49, ranks as one of the most puzzling figures in the war on terrorism. His story shows how a terrorist managed to infiltrate American society and join the Army, then turn his military training against his adopted country. In the end he also betrayed bin Laden, supplying the FBI with inside information on al-Qaida as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors in the 1998 terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. "He is one of the people who lurks in the background of this whole conspiracy," prosecutor Kenneth Karas said at the embassy bombing trial in New York earlier this year. Court records, including Mohamed's own admissions in his guilty plea last year, portray a man who mixed easily with civilians in California, soldiers in Fort Bragg, N.C., and terrorists in Nairobi, Kenya. The trail of double-crosses can be traced to 1981. That year, as an Egyptian army captain fluent in English, he completed a program for foreign officers offered by the Special Forces school at Fort Bragg. There, Mohamed learned unconventional warfare - the same training given Green Berets, minus classified classes. He has admitted that around the same time, he became involved with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a militant Muslim group eventually absorbed by al-Qaida. Mohamed left the Egyptian Army in 1984 and contacted the CIA, offering to be a spy, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The CIA learned he was boasting of a relationship with the agency, judged him unreliable and dropped him as a source, the official said. He was later placed on a U.S. government watch list, according to U.S. officials. Mohamed moved to the United States in 1985, settling in northern California and becoming a U.S. citizen. He married Linda Lee Sanchez of Santa Clara, Calif., that year at The Chapel of the Bells in Reno, Nev. Sanchez, on advice from her attorney, has declined to comment on Mohamed. In 1986, at age 34, Mohamed joined the U.S. Army in Oakland, Calif. Army officials said they did not know to what extent his background was checked. He returned to Fort Bragg as an enlisted man in 1987, working as a supply sergeant for Special Forces. He never became a Green Beret or received security clearance, but he gave briefings on Islamic fundamentalism and the Middle East at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. During one lecture, he told soldiers they had nothing to fear from devout Muslims, court records show. "The word fundamentalism scares people in the West," he said. "The word fundamentalism does not mean extremism." At the same time, Mohamed was moonlighting as a trainer for soldiers of a different stripe: militant Muslims in Brooklyn hoping to join the fight against a Soviet puppet government in Afghanistan. One member of the group, Khalid Ibrahim, testified at a 1995 trial that Mohamed trained them to fire AK47 assault rifles at a Connecticut shooting range. The witness also told how Mohamed gave classes in a Jersey City, N.J., apartment on "how to find your way by looking at the stars" and "how to recognize some of the weapons if you see them, like tanks." Some of Mohamed's students were later found guilty of plotting terrorist attacks, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and a plot to blow up New York City landmarks. Seized from the apartment of one of the convicted terrorists were manuals from the Kennedy school swiped by Mohamed, including an "enemy weapons guide" describing the Soviet arsenal, according to court testimony. Defense lawyers have said other documents included "top secret" plans for a Special Forces training exercise for an attack on a section of Pakistan. Army officials and prosecutors declined to discuss the specifics of the documents that ended up in the hands of America's future enemy. But a Special Forces spokesman, Maj. Gary Kolb, called the value of a late-1980s training manual in today's Afghanistan "debatable." Back then, no breach of security was evident at Fort Bragg. Kolb said an officer who worked with Mohamed "did have some suspicions about what he did, but nothing came as a result of it. It really depended on who you believed." Mohamed received at least two medals for "meritorious achievement" before being honorably discharged in 1989. After he left the U.S. Army, Mohamed took up al-Qaida's cause. Ibrahim recalled encountering a westernized Mohamed at a mountain training camp in Afghanistan in 1992. L'Houssain Kherchtou - a former bin Laden follower who testified in the embassy bombings trial - remembered meeting Mohamed at a training session in Pakistan in the early 1990s. Known as "Amriki," or "the American," Mohamed was "very, very strict and not gentle" while giving explosives and reconnaissance training. Trainees were warned in advance that Mohamed "was a severe man" who was "not a good practitioner of Islam," Kherchtou said through an interpreter. "You can hear from him some bad words." Mohamed, during his plea, admitted teaching al-Qaida foot soldiers how to create cell structures that could be used for operations. He also trained bin Laden's security detail. The plea provided one of the most direct links between bin Laden and the bombings that killed 231 people - 12 Americans and 219 Africans - at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Mohamed claimed bin Laden in late 1993 asked him to conduct surveillance of American, British, French and Israeli targets in Nairobi. His diagrams and photographs were reviewed by bin Laden, who "looked at the picture of the American Embassy and pointed to where a truck could go as a suicide bomber," he said. Returning to California in the mid-1990s, Mohamed helped a top aide to bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, raise money for the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He also monitored the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman - the blind Egyptian cleric convicted in the 1995 New York terrorism trials - for bin Laden. Once terrorists had struck the embassies, Mohamed said he planned to return to Egypt and then join bin Laden in Afghanistan. But prosecutors have said he also contacted the FBI, telling agents that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks. Mohamed was subpoenaed to testify before a New York grand jury before being indicted on conspiracy charges. He pleaded guilty in October 2000. "Abu Mohamed ali Amriki" has not been seen in public since. It remains unclear how Mohamed managed to enter the United States and join the Army in the 1980s, despite the CIA's misgivings. Equally unclear is how he was able to maintain his terror ties in the 1990s without being banished by either side, even after the Special Forces documents he stole turned up in the 1995 New York trial. The State Department, CIA and FBI declined to answer questions about Mohamed. Officials have refused to discuss how much he has helped in their investigations as he awaits sentencing, which has been postponed indefinitely. Given what's known, Mohamed fits the profile of a double agent, said Larry Johnson, former deputy chief of counterterrorism for the State Department. He believes Mohamed was an FBI informant before the embassy bombings. "I just see it as the FBI screwed up," Johnson said. "They didn't do a good job of information management." Rusty Capps, a retired FBI agent and president of the Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, said Mohamed seemed too interested in "trying to impress people" to be reliable. "If I were al-Qaida, if I were the CIA, if I were the FBI, I would not want to have a person like this anywhere within a thousand miles of me," Capps said. In the Army, Mohamed "was doing what was asked of him, and there was no reason to suspect anything differently," Kolb said. "Would we like to go back and change things? Definitely. Then maybe a lot of this would never have happened." --- EDITOR'S NOTE - AP reporter Larry Neumeister in New York also contributed to this story.

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Bonne Ann�e
by ma＠MarocMail.com 31 Dec '01

31 Dec '01

MarocAnnonces.com A l'occasion du Nouvel An l'équipe http://www.MarocAnnonces.com vous souhaite Bonne et Heureuse Année. Webmaster

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