August 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

Free trade and fucking US liArs.
by Matthew X 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec02/steel_8-06.html The business of America is none of your business?The United States government is terrified of the growing movement for global justice. It's not just in this country, it's all over the world. They are shown as the gutless, mean-spirited, utterly self-centred and cruel characters that they really are. FUCK you BUSHY! KILL the MAJOR LEAGUE ASSHOLE! (my 2$us)

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HAL asked to speed up the delivery schedule.
by Matthew X 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?artid=18900043 Designed for hot and high conditions Mmm."...third- generation anti-tank missile Nag My wifes got that already. Speaking of hot and high.Oregen burning,Smog cloud threw monsoon off course and driest July in 100 years.Is there a runaway green indahouse? Thank all the gods for http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?artid=18891466 Chidanand Rajghatta muses about the Indian legacy in mathematics following the latest number crunching feat from Kanpur On the subject of mathematics, there are two kinds of people the number crunchers and the number crunchees i.e., those who can crunch numbers with great facility, and those who get crunched by numbers. There are those of you who love to develop your quadriceps with quadratic equations and have binomial theorem for breakfast. Then there are those of us, who, faced with simple multiplication tables, have to lie down with a cold wet towel on our forehead. Where do you think you belong? There is a widespread belief that we Indians have a yen for numbers. It might not entirely be true. There are plenty of people even in Bharatvarsh who will subscribe to Bill Clintons jocular admonition that folks across the world would have been perfectly happy if Bhaskara and Brahmagupta had kept their works to themselves. Still, in the same spirit that contrived the number zero and the value pi, it turns out that Indians are still contributing significantly to the world of numbers even now, odd exceptions notwithstanding. The announcement this week that three mathematicians from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, have devised a method (or arrived as a algorithm , in mathematese) to determine whether a number is prime or not has created quite a flutter (or a quiet flutter) in the world of numbers. Prime numbers, for those of us mathematically challenged, are those that are divisible only by itself or by one. Although it sounds simple enough, its quite a task to determine what mathematicians call the primality of a number. For instance, is 4958372640287988786544 a prime number? Of course, the more facetious among us can say -- does it really matter? Apparently it does in ways that we may not immediately comprehend, like for instance, in determining whether the bristles on the toothbrush hurts our gums. Thats a joke. But you get the point. Some applications are not immediately apparent to the matho-phobics. One of the applications of prime numbers is in the world of cryptography i.e encryption and code breaking, which may be evident if you read the secret passage hidden in the preceding paragraph. Thats another joke. Read on. For years then, mathematicians have wrestled with ways to determine the primality of numbers. There are established methods, but they pose problems. One method can determine with absolute accuracy whether a number if prime or not, but it is a laborious process. Another method can determine the primality of a number far more quickly, but with a small probability of error, leading to what Prof Krishnaswami Alladi, a leading US-based mathematician calls, industrial grade prime number. What Messrs Manindra Agrawal, Neeraj Kayal and Nitin Saxena of the IIT Kanpur did was to arrive at a algorithm that helped determine the primality of a number accurately and quickly. But more of that later. Prof Alladi is one of the legatees of Indias great tradition in the field of numbers that begins with Aryabhata and Brahmagupta. Currently Chairman of the Department of Maths at the University of Florida in Gainesville, he is an authority on the works of Ramanujan, and he edits a publication called The Ramanujam Journal that deals with the areas the great man worked in and influenced. Prof Alladis grandfather was part of the group that gave India another remarkable document: the Indian Constitution. Like Prof Alladi, several other illustrious mathematicians of Indian origin live in America, none more renowned than Prof Harish Chandra, who had a distinguished career at Princeton before his death in 1996. The current heads of the mathematics department at the University of Minnesota (Prof Naresh Jain) and McGill University (Prof K.N.Gowrisankaran) are also Indians, and there are numerous others crunching away quietly in other groves of academia. But what the latest feat illustrates is that you dont have to be in America to hit the bulls eye. Having devised their primality test, the three Indians put their algorithm up on the IIT Kanpur website and e-mailed last Sunday it to well-known mathematicians across the world. Among the recipients of this e-mail was Prof Carl Pomerance at Bell Labs, an authority on prime numbers. No sooner had he seen the algorithm , Prof Pomerance discussed the draft with colleagues over lunch, and arranged an impromptu seminar on the subject the same afternoon. Within hours, the gathering validated the algorithm . We were all quite excited about it, Prof Pomerance told this correspondent in an interview on Thursday. They had solved the problem quite elegantly and arrived at beautiful result. The remarks were typical of math aficionados, who see beauty and elegance in numbers and equations that we number crunchees see in words and phrases. Mathematicians can also be delightfully quirky. We of course know the famous episode how Ramanujan, receiving Prof Hardy by his hospital bed, startled him by analysing impromptu the properties of his taxi cab number. Prof Pomerance is a mathematician in the same vein. One of his papers, published in the Journal of Recreational Mathematics, revolves around the interesting properties of the numbers 714 and 715, which was the number of home runs scored by Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron respectively. But to return to the story, there are two striking aspects to the IIT-ians prime numbers saga. One is how quickly the algorithm was shared across the world and validated by peers, thanks to the Internet. (Ironically, the so-called primality testing plays a crucial role in the widely used RSA algorithm, which is used to secure transactions over the Internet). In fact, attending Prof Pomerance seminar on Monday was Anupam Gupta, a computer scientist at Bell Labs who happens to work just down the corridor from the mathematician. Gupta is also from IIT-Kanpur, but he did not know the prime numbers trio. What he did recognise was the beauty of their algorithm . It was so simple and elegant that even I, more a computer scientist than a mathematician, could understand and appreciate it, he said. The second aspect of course is the longevity of the Indian legacy. Whether in India or in the United States, our mathematical bequest is alive and ticking (or clicking), and thanks to the Internet, the boundaries are even fewer than when Ramanujan shared his genius with the west. So now we know and can rest assured: Some day, there will be a paper on the properties of Tendulkars final tally. India still has the number on math. HALlo!

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Dishonore!
by Matthew X 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

ITALY08.12.2002 Journalist imprisoned over articles in 1960s. Reporters sans frontières today expressed its outrage over the imprisonment of former journalist Stefano Surace (photo), 69, for supposed press crimes committed more than 30 years ago. The case is "doubly scandalous", Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said in a letter to Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. "To sentence journalists to imprisonment for press crimes is contrary to UN standards, but it is unworthy of a democratic country to jail an elderly man who has not been a journalist for years for crimes that should be subject to limitation by lapse of time and which would nowadays not even be the subject of prosecution," he said. "We call on you to intervene and pardon Stefano Surace so that he can be released", the letter added. "We also call for the removal of prison sentences for press crimes from Italian law, as recommended by the UN Commission on Human Rights and the UN Special Rapporteur on promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression." Surace, who edited the nonconformist publication Le Ore during the 1960s, has been incarcerated since December 2001 in Opera prison near Milan, where he is serving a sentence of two years, six months and 12 days stemming from convictions for libel and obscenity handed down in 1963 and 1967. A resident of France for almost 40 years, he was arrested when he went to visit a friend in Italy. He was known for his investigations into prison life and, while still a journalist, had founded an association of former detainees. He had ceased to work as a journalist before these convictions and had become a ju-jitsu teacher.

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Encryption is not the solution- CryptoS is the final solution.
by Matthew X 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

Encryption is not the solution article.Thread. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/8/12/93020/8070 CryptoS;the social hack when only the best will do. Who wants to participate to help form what will be the LAST revolution on earth, the one that'll take down ALL the governments? James Dalton Bell."

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Collect through station T,pump defector(s) for information.Eyes only.
by Matthew X 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

http://www.marconi-securesystems.com/products/products-lector.htm The device features a 'RED s bus' allowing it to interface with any data equipment on the crypto input side without additional ISDN interfacing equipment. Data and voice calls can be made via the Red-S-Bus. Calls are established via the terminal equipment connected to the LECTOR Red-S-Bus. Generally, the user is not required to operate any of the LECTOR manual controls when making or receiving Red-S-Bus calls, Red-S-Bus calls require the use of a STK or SuperSTK and entry of a PIN. The S-Bus standard (1.420) allows a LECTOR to have up to eight terminal equipments connected to the Red-S-Bus port. However, it is suggested that no more than four terminal equipments are connected to a LECTOR to reduce the possibility of terminal equipment access problems. Click here for the .pdf datasheet (609kbytes)

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Implementation of Chosen-Ciphertext Attacks against PGP and GnuPG
by aleph1＠securityfocus.com 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

Implementation of Chosen-Ciphertext Attacks against PGP and GnuPG K. Jallad, J. Katz, and B. Schneier We recently noted that PGP and other e-mail encryption protocols are, in theory, highly vulnerable to chosen-ciphertext attacks in which the recipient of the e-mail acts as an unwitting "decryption oracle." We argued further that such attacks are quite feasible and therefore represent a serious concern. Here, we investigate these claims in more detail by attempting to implement the suggested attacks. On one hand, we are able to successfully implement the described attacks against PGP and GnuPG (two widely-used software packages) in a number of different settings. On the other hand, we show that the attacks largely fail when data is compressed before encryption. Interestingly,the attacks are unsuccessful for largely fortuitous reasons; resistance to these attacks does not seem due to any conscious effort made to prevent them. Based on our work, we discuss those instances in which chosen-ciphertext attacks do indeed represent an important threat and hence must be taken into account in order to maintain confidentiality. We also recommend changes in the OpenPGP standard to reduce the effectiveness of our attacks in these settings. http://www.counterpane.com/pgp-attack.pdf http://www.counterpane.com/pgp-attack.ps.zip -- Elias Levy Symantec Alea jacta est ----- End forwarded message -----

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Get yer grid on.
by Matthew X 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/enterprise/story/0,2000025001,20267287,00.… "Cluster computing is about resources aggregation in a single administrative domain," he (Rajkumar Buyya) explains. "Grid computing in about resource sharing and aggregation across multiple domains." I have no idea what that means,however ..."Having recently completed a doctoral thesis outlining the economic paradigm which might underpin such a system in the commercial environment, Buyya points to the Grid's scheduling capabilities as the most crucial difference between grid and cluster computing." Oh and get your old MMflash off,soon,so I can get in.

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Implementation of Chosen-Ciphertext Attacks against PGP and GnuPG
by aleph1＠securityfocus.com 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

Implementation of Chosen-Ciphertext Attacks against PGP and GnuPG K. Jallad, J. Katz, and B. Schneier We recently noted that PGP and other e-mail encryption protocols are, in theory, highly vulnerable to chosen-ciphertext attacks in which the recipient of the e-mail acts as an unwitting "decryption oracle." We argued further that such attacks are quite feasible and therefore represent a serious concern. Here, we investigate these claims in more detail by attempting to implement the suggested attacks. On one hand, we are able to successfully implement the described attacks against PGP and GnuPG (two widely-used software packages) in a number of different settings. On the other hand, we show that the attacks largely fail when data is compressed before encryption. Interestingly,the attacks are unsuccessful for largely fortuitous reasons; resistance to these attacks does not seem due to any conscious effort made to prevent them. Based on our work, we discuss those instances in which chosen-ciphertext attacks do indeed represent an important threat and hence must be taken into account in order to maintain confidentiality. We also recommend changes in the OpenPGP standard to reduce the effectiveness of our attacks in these settings. http://www.counterpane.com/pgp-attack.pdf http://www.counterpane.com/pgp-attack.ps.zip -- Elias Levy Symantec Alea jacta est ----- End forwarded message -----

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Delay Tolerant? Semantic? We can dream that for you wholesale!
by Matthew X 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

Right here at Cpunks-the data protection professionals. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54416,00.html "..."Part of what Tim is trying to do is open the Internet up to different forms of human communication that are much less constrained," ..." Substitute 'J' for 'T'. Jim for instance, is one of the sweetest human beings I've ever met. His essential good-heartedness has been embedded in the culture of the Internet." Thats why ISP's want to ban IRC! http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54184,00.html Good heartedness is undergoing violent attack,If you've yet to try this expect a satellite gap of about 1 second.(not to mention risking being declared a dacoit) Do you believe in astroturf,PRI,CATO and countless other liars for money? Dont read this... Humanity Loses $250 Billion a Year in Wild Habitat Environment News Service. Everyone is witless. Everyone is a journalist.

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Best Investment Tip I have seen yet 0916EBYV4-143Zcet6312Dpft2-011WB-30
by lola1368g66＠em365.com 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

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