February 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

Slashdot | AES: Learn All About It
by Jim Choate 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

http://slashdot.org/articles/01/02/22/218229.shtml -- ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Centre for Hypersonics - HyShot Scramjet Test Programme
by Jim Choate 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

http://www.mech.uq.edu.au/hyper/hyshot/ -- ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski 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: Secure Erasing is actually harder than that...
by Gil Hamilton 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

Ray Dillinger writes: >On Thu, 22 Feb 2001, Sampo Syreeni wrote: > >Why not simply use encrypted hard drives? Make the driver forget key > >material in a fixed period of keyboard inactivity? This would be a >helluva > >lot easier than making secure versions of every existing application out > >there... >Don't get me wrong -- I believe in encrypted drives. They provide a "mix" >so you can't tell which bit was written by what application, and that's a >valuable service. But there are limits to what they can do or should be >relied on to do. Applications that write to (and more importantly, which >read from) the encrypted drive should themselves be crypto-aware and do >proper key management. This is a case of letting the perfect be an enemy of the good: it ain't ever gonna happen. People that write MUAs or word processors or spread sheet programs or web browsers are good at and want to write those programs. They aren't going to have the time or interest in becoming expert enough in crypto to use it wisely. So, with a few exceptions, crypto is (and probably ought to be) done by wrapping the application, or putting a new front-end (or back-end on it) or encrypting the drive at the OS level. Crypto and key management is hard (particularly if you do it well); it just isn't realistic to expect that it will *ever* be designed in as a matter of course. - GH _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

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U2 is coming to Tacoma and Match.com has tickets!
by eventseries＠match.com 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

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Remailer Functions (Re: Testing for encryption. (fwd))
by Jim Choate 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

Which raises an interesting question for me, Plan 9 has no remailer and I've decided to take that on as a first project. However, I want to combine the features of say majordomo with several different sorts of anonymity (ranging from stripping From: headers to full encryption). For the time being I'm refering to it as 'igor'. I believe fundamentally that putting routing info in the body of the traffic is evil. So I intend to use the Subject: with default delimiters (ie [igor: *]). So if you wanted to send to SSZ CDR under igor and strip your headers the command might be Subject: Foobar [igor: strip_header]. The [*] is itself always stripped. There will also be a no_log that won't log the receipt or transmission in any system file. You could of course chain commands. While I do intend to allow igor to use a 'set' of trusted remailers using PKE the actual selection of remailers will be decided by the listproc and not the user. They'll only be able to do, for example, [igor: encrypt, mix, strip_header, no_log, check_pgp] This would for example encrypt the body using the inter-igor PK's. It would send the email w/ cover traffic to some number of remailers (maybe mix_# also?). It would strip the header before it did anything so in effect the recipient will see the last remailers header and that's it. No log would instruct all igor nodes to not log the traffic. And finally it would ensure that the original source traffic fit the PGP format (it would support other algorithms through loadable modules. Inter-igor traffic relating to a particular piece of mail would be wrapped around the actual traffic under question (the body would never be touched by igor's hands directly). I've still not decided exactly what scope this command set will cover. With respect to mix, what I intend is each igor will have a list of trusted single-hop receivers. It will randomly select n (or m if n>m) of these and use the PK's to encrypt the traffic. It will only send/receive from this trusted list. So if you tell igor to use 3 layers of remailer then each node can only know of it's immediate neighbors and won't have any way of determining where any neighbor received it from (Yes, the wording of the last couple of sentences is a tad vague). It will of course support the sorts of features that majordomo has as well. What other sorts of features might be useful? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:07:23 -0800 From: David Honig <honig(a)sprynet.com> Actually these functions belong in the listserver (remailer) not the SMTP agent. 1. filter on: list of acceptable substrings such as headers, 'CDR:' tokens, etc.; and/or entropy threshold and/or; recognized digsigs from members of the list 2. decrypt 3. for each list member encrypt msg from previous step and send ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski 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: FAQ? how to set up a cross-platform encrypted mailing list/forum (fwd)
by Jim Choate 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

The original poster allowed plain text and the only other stipulation they made was 'if it was unencrypted', the other statement related to doing what all of you are speaking of, specifying (via a httpd interface, SSL?, supported protocols NOT specified outside of no plaintext. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 08:52:37 -0800 From: David Honig <honig(a)sprynet.com> I don't think the original poster intended rot13 to be acceptable. And this would be caught: plaintext ciphered with the former won't pass the entropy test. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Another problem with telescopic RNG's
by Jim Choate 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

They are open to 'artificial star' attacks using lasers and the upper atmosphere. They are currently used in the Keck for example as 'adaptive optics' so they can correct for distortions in the atmosphere. They use a fixed amplitude beam and measure the variations, the opposite tack of using a variable beam could induce non-randomness into the stream. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Testing for encryption. (fwd)
by Jim Choate 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Only problem is the constraint that GPG must be specified as the allowed source encryption standard a priori. This was NOT in the original problem description. There is NO algorithm which will determine if an arbitrary piece of text is encrypted by an arbitrary algorithm. You can tell, at least statistically if a particular piece of arbitrary text ISN'T a particular algorithm or language either. Again, not the same problem. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 21 Feb 2001 19:44:33 -0000 From: Septic Remailer Admin <septic-admin(a)nym.alias.net> To: Jim Choate <ravage(a)EINSTEIN.ssz.com> Subject: Testing for encryption. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- #!/usr/bin/perl # name: encryption_check.pl # purpose: Tests if STDIN is encrypted. Prints file to STDOUT if # it is encrypted. Discards unencrypted files. # requires: /bin/tempfile from debianutils, /usr/bin/gpg # TODO: # Does it need to detect Mixmaster messages? # It should handle pings (i.e. plain text) to another remailer # by checking rlist or some arbitrary whitelist. # author: septic-admin(a)nym.alias.net # date: 4 OCT 2000 # license: GPL if (!-x "/bin/tempfile") { die "requires /bin/tempfile"; } if (!-x "/usr/bin/gpg") { die "requires /usr/bin/gpg"; } my $TMP = `tempfile` || die "cannot create temp file"; my $ENCRYPTED = 0; # Store the file. open(TEMPFILE, ">$TMP") || die "cannot open temp file"; while (<>) { print TEMPFILE; } close(TEMPFILE) || die "cannot close tempfile"; # Test the file. open(GPG, "gpg --batch 2>&1 <$TMP|") || die "cannot open GPG pipe"; while (<GPG>) { if ($_ =~ /^gpg: encrypted/) { $ENCRYPTED = 1; } } close(GPG); # Insert code here to test destination against whitelist (for pings). # Print the file to STDOUT if it is encrypted. if ($ENCRYPTED) { open(TEMPFILE, "<$TMP") || die "cannot reopen temp file"; while (<TEMPFILE>) { print; } close(TEMPFILE); } unlink $TMP || die "cannot unlink temp file"; -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBOpQLgHT63FdzI1K1AQELwAQAr44gXDXjrHGzhF+Dj7YTw37hBkDrQaBf QhmCRf22ikzWEazvWIqCCMOMRd5nB+bD454JWI5G7QWAOHNvU8lL2S4kxRIFqNyr gA1vdrs5MlzRYQptjz2HpFpfx7BEO1mxsSXrlsCqOrNkAYmnhicfVgoMXcdYyQul Rvw13C4kasw= =UEL2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: FAQ? how to set up a cross-platform encrypted mailing list/forum (fwd)
by Jim Choate 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

Where's the supposed source encryption specification statement? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 16:27:49 +0000 From: Rachel Willmer <rachel(a)intertrader.com> To: Ben Laurie <ben(a)algroup.co.uk>, Joseph Ashwood <ashwood(a)msn.com> Cc: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net, coderpunks(a)toad.com, cryptography(a)c2.net Subject: Re: FAQ? how to set up a cross-platform encrypted mailing list/forum The problem I see with doing this, is that it doesn't stop someone absent-mindedly sending out an unencrypted mail to the list server. Which then will travel happily in the clear over the Internet to the list server, (where it gets encrypted and sent back out again but its too late by then). so I'm coming round to the idea that the only way to do this is via a web-driven interface on a secure server. ugh. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Внешность и здоровье
by SOS 22 Feb '01

22 Feb '01

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