October 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: CHAUM CHIMES IN
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: 08 Sep 93 16:30:55 EDT >From: Sandy <72114.1712(a)CompuServe.COM> >Subject: CHAUM CHIMES IN >Message-Id: <930908203054_72114.1712_FHF95-2(a)CompuServe.COM> ..From: > SANDY SANDFORT Reply to: ssandfort(a)attmail.com [ . . . ] >Of course, the next letter to the editor calls for the adoption >of systems to track every vehicle at all times. The genius who >wrote the letter, thinks it would be a good way to prevent >nuclear, biological or chemical terrorism. Geeeeez. It was signed by Dorothy Denning, right? Actually, they should take that to its full conclusion. We need implants in every individual, broadcasting to the local surveillance agency, giving not only location but also every word spoken in the vicinity. It could also do a chemical analysis of the air in the neighborhood. It should also have a radiation counter. It should also monitor the host body, looking for signs of anger or sexual arousal? How else will we be guaranteed safe from mad bombers, rapists and child molesters? How else will our big budget LE agencies be able to protect us? I know. When it's finally adopted, worldwide, they'll call it the Ellison Plan. :-( - Carl

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Stegno and DAT and digital music...
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In this week's Sunday NYT, Hans Fantel, their music guy, writes at length about the new "dithered" CD's and how the guys have improved the sound. He says that the original CD format was limited to 16 bits of sound because of costs. But many audiophiles reacted very negatively to the tinny, metalic quality to the music. For this reason, the companies have developed 20 bit DAT recording tape and then come up with ways to "dither" this into 16 bits. I am curious if anyone knows the details of these algorithms. Also, his point suggests that flipping the least significant bit of 16 bit music may not be imperceptable to some ears. If the classical music starts to sound tinny then there might be something subversive in the least significant bits. -Peter Wayner

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Remail: errors
by HFinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have been out of town for the last week, so I missed some CP mail. It looks like some good things are happening with remailers, though. Kudos to Karl, Sameer, and the others for their work! I have received many messages to my remailer in the last week which came from remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu, which were PGP-encrypted apparently in an effort to get my remailer to send them. They did not work, though, because there was no "Encrypted: PGP" header to trigger the remailer's decryption. This can be arranged by creating the message something like this: ======================================================== :: Request-Remailing-To: hfinney(a)shell.portal.com :: Encrypted: PGP - -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- <rest of message> - -----END PGP MESSAGE------ ======================================================== This would then be sent to remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu. I don't know whether the multiplicity of such erroneous messages is just due to one person stubbornly re-trying, or whether there is an error in one of the new programs for creating chained remailer messages. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBLJaNuKgTA69YIUw3AQHrNwQAowMEQwuH6YyHoj6T7AqZFLNdTf+eqJ9L LhAatHS94nmC1smkfVNq0dZmigmkvBdMNEPlBZemmxALz+KJw6OSY/ULSBmuVNEq 5rJANh3XimoJWqLISy2lZiuC5Fw2R7UvRadcdM94pncSVvev92Fyf7CqEOOtrGAK PUzRds7BVNo= =FpLa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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more than spread spectrum
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There are alternatives to spread spectrum, if we're threatened with loss of freedom to communicate. We could lay our own wires/fibers. We could set up a mesh network of infrared lasers through the air. Last time I looked, there were no laws against shining lights out your window as long as they didn't bother anyone. An infrared laser could hardly bother anyone. We could produce a line of cheap cards to plug into a PC which would do packet routing, using a variety of physical links -- our own wires, lasers, very low range radio, .... Each card would connect to three or more neighbors and become part of the global mesh. Adaptive routing with no global map would suffice for the card and would keep the whole system peer-to-peer with no need for central control and no chance for central tapping. Of course all of these solutions require a high density of users. A college campus might be the right place to start. We could then branch out to cities. I suspect that a place like Chicago or NYC with high rise apartments might be the place to start -- many options for line-of-sight communications. The benefit isn't just for Cypherpunks. It's a free network for the masses -- like the original USENET (with each user donating routing and store/forward) but with unrestricted, low-range, continuously operating physical links. I'll volunteer to do the software for the node card. Does anyone have hardware design/fab to donate to the effort? - Carl

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Re: What email encryption is actually in use?
by David Howe 02 Nov '02

02 Nov '02

at Monday, September 30, 2002 7:52 PM, James A. Donald <jamesd(a)echeque.com> was seen to say: > Is it practical for a particular group, for > example a corporation or a conspiracy, to whip up its own > damned root certificate, without buggering around with > verisign? (Of course fixing Microsoft's design errors is > never useful, since they will rebreak their products in new > ways that are more ingenious and harder to fix.) Yup. In fact, some IPSec firewalls rely on the corporate having a local CA root to issue keys for VPN access. from there it is only a small step to using the same (or parallel issued) keys for email security. The problem there really is that the keys will be flagged as faulty by anyone outside the group (and therefore without the root key already imported), and that will usually only work in a semi-rigid hierachical structure. There *is* an attempt to set up something resembling a Web of trust using x509 certificiates, currently in the early stages at nntp://news.securecomp.org/WebOfTrust > I intended to sign this using Network Associates command line > pgp, only to discover that pgp -sa file produced unintellible > gibberish, that could only be made sense of by pgp, so that no > one would be able to read it without first checking my > signature. you made a minor config error - you need to make sure clearsign is enabled. > I suggest that network associates should have hired me as UI > design manager, or failing, that, hired the dog from down the > street as UI design manager. It's command line. Most cyphergeeks like command line tools powerful and cryptic :)

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patents
by R. A. Hettinga 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

--- begin forwarded text

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Re: Confiscation of Anti-War Video
by Bill Frantz 31 Oct '02

31 Oct '02

At 1:52 PM -0800 10/31/02, Steve Schear wrote: >At 11:37 AM 10/31/2002 -0800, you wrote: >>Another "fix" that is being used is passengers who will act to keep the >>plane from being used as a weapon. If the hijackers have to kill people >>with small sharp objects that they can smuggle on board, instead of mass >>killing devices like machine guns, then a large number of passengers can >>overcome a small number of hijackers. > >This assumption may not be a good one. Considering the level of current >security checks, it should be trivial to smuggle some sort of anesthetic or >poisonous gas generator aboard. No need for sharp objects. AFAIK, the air >supply aboard current U.S. fleets is shared between passengers and cockpit. IIRC, the regs call for pilots to either wear oxygen masks, or have "quick to put on" masks readily at hand. Cheers - Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | The principal effect of| Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | DMCA/SDMI is to prevent| 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)pwpconsult.com | fair use. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Cute Teenie ADV
by come＠hottielatinas.com 31 Oct '02

31 Oct '02

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Re: ISP Utilty To Cypherpunks?
by Morlock Elloi 31 Oct '02

31 Oct '02

I see an open search engine as the most important server project. Limit the engine to cpunkish issues and similar to control the popularity (bandwidth). Run your own harvesters/spiders. This would help limit the google monopoly and power and provide a search engine of choice for the (gasp) "community". The question is, how does one construct a censorship-free search engine. ===== end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/

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Re: Confiscation of Anti-War Video
by John Kelsey 31 Oct '02

31 Oct '02

At 12:01 PM 10/28/02 -0800, Tim May wrote: ... >By the way, there are perfectly good fixes to the current hysteria >about things carried on board planes. Besides the obvious absurdity of >issuing alarms when fingernail clippers are found (but ignoring razor >sharp edges in things like laptops with metal cases!), there are many >fixes which can be applied: I think the best fix is to accept that a determined suicidal attacker will probably manage to bring down the plane, but make sure that's the worst he can do. That removes the externality problem. The current algorithm for this is some combination of pilots being told not to go along with hijackers' demands, and maybe some chance of getting a military jet in place to shoot the hijacked plane down, if it is taken over by the hijackers. (It seems like this wouldn't be practical most of the time, e.g., if someone takes over the plane as it's approaching landing, there probably wouldn't be anyone in place to shoot in time. And faster response time means less time to discover a mistake.) I've heard of an idea for a mechanism for putting some kind of remote-control piloting mechanism on the plane, so that it can be taken over from the ground. This adds new attack points, but it might be workable. And of course, rockets have long had self-destruct mechanisms; presumably, there's stuff off the shelf from NASA or the DoD that does this with some reasonable level of security. (This last one would be politically unacceptable, but it's not really all that different from having a fighter shoot the hijacked plane down.) Both of these introduce a bunch of new vulnerabilities, though. Your list left out the obvious technique, which I think is more-or-less used by El Al: Screen your passengers really well, probably using secret databases, various kinds of racial profiling, etc. Routinely turn passengers away, or make boarding the plane such an ordeal that they elect not to fly anymore. (One of the many problems with this is that most flights are within the US; make flying sufficiently nasty, and people will take trains, busses, or their own cars. I think this is already happening a great deal, which is one reason most airlines are doing so poorly.) ... >4. Finally, market solutions are usually best. Any of the above could >be implemented. If customers feel safer with a different baggage >policy, they'll pick it. ... I can't imagine this being done in practice, but I wish it were. The problem *is* an externality, but not the one you pointed out. Politicians in office right now will be blamed if there's another hijacking. So if I choose to fly Allahu Akbar Airlines for the short security checking lines, I get the benefit, but part of the cost lands on incumbent congressmen and the President. And those incumbents, unlike most people who get stuck with such costs, have the power to do something about it. (Something pretty similar happens with the FDA, right? If you get the new cancer drug a year earlier, you get all the benefit (maybe you get to go on living); the FDA gets the added risk of their being some horrible side effect. So they force a different trade-off on you than you'd prefer.) >--Tim May --John Kelsey, kelsey.j(a)ix.netcom.com // jkelsey(a)certicom.com

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