November 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Gestapo harasses John Young, appeals to patriotism, told to fuck off
by Anonymous 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

>Confirming the allegation about idiot witnesses, I am >sure I would not recognize either agent if I saw them >again. The IDs yes, and the questions, but not the >bland biometrics. You do have right to take pictures in your residence, no ? I am sure that "John Young's real time door webcam" would be a popular URL to look up. Maybe you could even sell some ad space there.

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Re: NSA Turns To Commercial Software For Encryption
by Major Variola (ret) 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

At 10:01 PM 10/26/03 -0600, J.A. Terranson wrote: >On Sun, 26 Oct 2003, Eugen Leitl wrote: > ><snip> >> In the case of the NSA deal, the agency >> wanted to use a 512-bit key for the ECC system. This is the >> equivalent of an RSA key of 15,360 bits." > >Am I the only one here who finds this "requirement" excessive? My god: are >we looking to keep these secrets for 50 years, or 50000 (or more) years? In meatspace engineering of life-critical systems, you might design for a few times more than you need under worst-case conditions. Eg, on a bridge: high winds, heavy trucks densely spaced, poor maintenance, poor materials. Remember that bridges fall down when you do something new, like use steel. Or nowadays: planes fall out of the sky because you don't know how composites fail. The NSA might be hedging against future algorithmic improvements. If tomorrow you could factor numbers (or the ECC equivalent) with twice the number of bits, will your spies die? Cf. East German Stasi files, and some south-american files being cracked.

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Disguising the Key length (Was...Has a change taken place in factoring RSA keys)
by Tyler Durden 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

"I think that's the source as well - when the most recent of the TWINKLE and TWIRL papers came out, Lucky Green was talking about whether it was still safe to use 1024-bit keys, and $1B for 1 key/day is similar to Shamir & Tromer's estimate of ( http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~tromer/papers/cbtwirl.pdf ) $20M upfront plus $10M for a 1 key/year capacity." My first question is, how easy is it for them to estimate the key size of an encrypted message? Can they do this without actually "chewing" on the message for a while? (ie, if it doesn't crack in x minutes then there's a 99% probability of the key being Y in length...) Second question: Is it possible to make a message appear to have been encrypted with a shorter key than was actually used? -TD >From: "Bill Stewart" <bill.stewart(a)pobox.com> >To: <cypherpunks(a)lne.com> >CC: <wk(a)gnupg.org> >Subject: Re: Q: Has a change taken place in factoring RSA keys? >Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 14:50:00 -0800 (PST) > > >> In particular a claim was made that recent technology has come to > >> light that allows factoring of 1024 bit RSA keys at $1B (US)/day. The > >> basic gist was that > > > > Adi Shamir's TWINKLE, I guess. > >I think that's the source as well - when the most recent of the >TWINKLE and TWIRL papers came out, Lucky Green was talking about >whether it was still safe to use 1024-bit keys, >and $1B for 1 key/day is similar to Shamir & Tromer's estimate of > ( http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~tromer/papers/cbtwirl.pdf >) >$20M upfront plus $10M for a 1 key/year capacity. > (The alternative is that it's people believing the usual FUD sources, > whether they're the pro-government serious FUD sources or the > fun-yanking-people's-chains clueless FUDsters.) > > >> There was some discussion about hacking GPG to generate 8k keys. > >But if 1024-bit keys are too weak, RSA is still near-exponential, >and 2048-bit keys are roughly 2**100 times harder to crack than 1024-bit, >vs. 4-8 times as slow to use. 4096 is a lot harder than that; >even if you allow for Moore's law and medium mathematical breakthroughs, >you're still not going to fit a 4096-bit cracker on the planet. > >Basically, by the time you're interesting enough for them to spend >$10M and a year to crack your machine, you'd better be using 2048-bit keys >for tactical applications and maybe 4096-bit for long-term military >secrets, >and since they're targeting YOU, it's a lot cheaper for them to >black-bag your PC or plant cameras in your ceiling or bribe your janitor. > > > That won't help unless you find a way to get random number as good as > > the keysize. > >Large random numbers aren't that hard if you're using them for >long-term signature keys, as opposed to DH or symmetric session keys; >it just takes a bit longer to generate the bits. >Also, once you're up above the 1024-bit range, incremental quality is >less important, because attacks on the keyspace are hard to combine >with factoring attacks on the keys, especially if you're whitening them. > >But as you say, taking GPG from 4kbit to 8kbit keys doesn't matter, >because it's no longer close to the weakest link by then. _________________________________________________________________ Is your computer infected with a virus? Find out with a FREE computer virus scan from McAfee. Take the FreeScan now! http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

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RE: e voting (receipts, votebuying, brinworld)
by Major Variola (ret) 29 Nov '03

29 Nov '03

At 12:56 PM 11/25/03 -0500, Sunder wrote: >Um, last I checked, phone cameras have really shitty resolution, usually >less than 320x200. Even so, you'd need MUCH higher resolution, say >3-5Mpixels to be able to read text on a printout in a picture. > >Add focus and aiming issues, and this just won't work unless you carry a >good camera into the booth with you. Ever hear of Moore's law? How about electronic image stabilization? Piezo gyros optional. Don't you think the cellphone folks will do the more-pixels-game, trying to add features that distinguish their model from the nearly identical other models? Related: There are plans to put a couple of cameras in autos, to check where the driver is looking at, wakefulness, etc. All by 2010. (Src: EETimes) And you thought car telemetry recorders were privacy concerns. (There are *already* dozens of microcontrollers in low end cars, a hundred in high-end cars. So much for TJ Watson's "the world only needs five computers"...)

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US spying, directv, shades of global crossing
by Major Variola (ret.) 29 Nov '03

29 Nov '03

The parent company of DirecTV, the home satellite service, has promised several federal agencies that it can address concerns about foreign ownership of sensitive U.S. communications systems if it wins approval of its proposed merger with Australian-controlled News Corp. ... But the merger also has drawn the scrutiny of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and Justice Department divisions in addition to the antitrust department. The deal would bring DirecTV's five satellites and sophisticated communications system under the control of a company based outside the United States. Chief among the U.S. concerns is that a foreign-owned satellite system and communications system could be used for illegal surveillance on U.S. citizens and facilities, according to documents passed this week among Hughes, News Corp. and the federal government. "As the [FCC] is aware, the DOJ, FBI and DHS have taken the position that their ability to satisfy their obligations to protect the national security, to enforce the laws, and to preserve the safety of the public could be significantly impaired by transactions in which foreign entities will own or operate a part of the U.S. communications system, or in which foreign-located facilities will be used to provide domestic communications services to U.S. customers," read a letter filed at the FCC by the three law enforcement agencies last week. The Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States, a group made up of executive departments and representatives from the State, Defense, Treasury and Commerce departments, typically reviews transactions involving foreign ownership of businesses that serve the United States. In September, for instance, the committee approved the reorganization plan for Global Crossing, a telecommunications company being acquired out of bankruptcy by a Singapore-based firm. . http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19987-2003Nov28?language=printer

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Re: Now how they do that ?
by Major Variola (ret) 29 Nov '03

29 Nov '03

At 11:12 AM 11/28/03 -0600, Neil Johnson wrote: >Investigators traced the computer to Krastof when he logged onto his own >America Online account at home through one of the stolen computers, White >said. That enabled authorities to connect the computer's Internet Protocol >address, a number that identifies a computer on the Internet, to Krastof's >home address through his AOL account, White said. > >My guess that there was some sort of application (maybe an internally based IM >client) that "phoned home" when the thief started up the computer. Conventionally, only the NIC's MAC is supposed to be unique. Nowadays there are other IDs including disk-drive serial numbers, motherboard SNs, OS SN's, etc. None of these are supposed to be sent upstream, and the NIC MAC ends at the first router. And of course doens't exist if Krastof used a modem. So yeah, a "phone home" app sounds likely ---even an *unintentional* one, like one that automatically checks a "home server" for updates, corporate news, etc. Then you merely snag the IP, find it comes from AOL (rather than your internal network) who looks up who occupied that address at that time. Krastof probably used his meatspace info, subpeona, no-knock, game over.

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Airplane Comedy
by Eric Cordian 29 Nov '03

29 Nov '03

http://www.tshirthell.com/shirts/tshirt.php?sku=a102 I'd love to see John Gilmore wear this on his next airline flight. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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Now how they do that ?
by Neil Johnson 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

From: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&e=3&u=/nm/20031126/tc_n… SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Police have arrested a California man in connection to a burglary in which a computer with sensitive information about Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC - news) customers was stolen, officials said on Wednesday. (snip) Investigators traced the computer to Krastof when he logged onto his own America Online account at home through one of the stolen computers, White said. That enabled authorities to connect the computer's Internet Protocol address, a number that identifies a computer on the Internet, to Krastof's home address through his AOL account, White said. (snip) My guess that there was some sort of application (maybe an internally based IM client) that "phoned home" when the thief started up the computer. Or at least I hope .... -- Neil Johnson http://www.njohnsn.com PGP key available on request.

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Re: e voting (receipts, votebuying, brinworld)
by anonymous＠remailer.hastio.org 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

Major Variola (ret) (mv(a)cdc.gov) wrote on 2003-11-25: > Vinny the Votebuyer pays you if you send a picture of your > face adjacent to the committed receipt, even if you can't touch it. * Voter locks in choice on touch screen. * Paper receipt is printed and shown to voter. * Voter chooses 'great' -> receipt disappears into ballot box Voter chooses 'nope' -> receipt disappears into trash bin / can be taken home as a souvenir. > Since the voting booth is private, no one can see you do this, > even if it were made illegal. (And since phones can store images, > jamming the transmission at the booth doesn't work.) > > You send your picture from the cellphone that took it, along with a paypal > account number as a text message. The intention behind requiring receipts is not to get totally secure voting, but to get oting that is not much more insecure than the current paper process. I assume the 'take pic, show later' attack is also possible against the current system.

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RE: C3 Nehemia C5P with better hardware RNG and AES support
by coderman 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

... delayed response > From: Peter Gutmann > "Lucky Green" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >... > >I fail to understand why VIA bothered adding AES support into the CPU. When > >was AES last the bottleneck on a general-purpose CPU? > > Apart from the obvious "what cool thing can we fit in -> <- this much spare > die space?", the obvious target is SOHO routers/firewall boxes. My spies tell > me that it's already being used in a number of products like this, and the > addition of AES will help the process. I am working on a linux distribution that is using the hardware RNG for seeding/rng in number of things (IPSEC, ssh, ssl, gpg, etc) and this is definitely the angle I am excited about. A 1Ghz proc goes a long way, but in a media intensive system (video, audio, streaming over wireless) you want to keep CPU load as light as possible so that latency is minimal. With the C5P you can now do VPN with AES, rng via the hardware entropy, and video offload via the CLE266. This leaves the CPU free to handle various interrupts for the wireless network, disk i/o, etc. Very nice move, I think. I have written some poor code and info regarding the C5XL (nehemiah) and linux: http://peertech.org/hardware/viarng/ [ I'll be cleaning code up and releasing new patches/srcs soon ] > Hardware SHA-1 in the next rev makes > it even better, since you can now do IPsec and SSL tunneling purely in > hardware (and then you lose it all again in the crappy Rhine II NIC, but > that's another story). A lot of peer networking applications use SHA digests for securely identifying resources in a network. The overhead of this for large volumes of content will make this a welcome addition :-) Also, Centaur indicated that with the SHA on die, they can produce statistically perfect RNG output. The von neumann whitener does let a small bias through for very large data sets IIRC (i.e. a statistical bias is detectable in 1G or more data) If you are using the hardware rng via a user space daemon feeding /dev/random then this is no longer an issue. > >The bottleneck tends to be modular exponentiations, yet VIA failed to include > >a modular exponentiation engine. Strange. > > Not for SOHO use it isn't, the initial handshake overhead is negligible > compared to the constant link encryption overhead. The alternative is to do > the crypto externally, for which you're paying for an expensive and power- > hungry crypto core capable of doing a zillion DH/RSA ops/sec that gets used > once every few hours. The alternative is to load or load your standard > firewall firmware into a Nehemiah and offload all the crypto and RNG stuff. I am also curious about crypto-loop file system acceleration / CPU offload. There are a number of uses I am anxious to try with this hardware. Best regards,

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