December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Message Digest
by Costin RAIU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, cypherpunks I'm interested in a 256 bits (or more) message digest algorithm (C source is better). Any URLs ? bye, c0s *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* | Costin RAIU, D.S.E. (craiu(a)pcnet.pcnet.ro) | | UNIX++C, RAYTRACING, RAVE, anime and SF(ST) fan | | | | "Windows95 - Tomorrow's bugs, Today" | *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

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Re: DON'T Nuke Singapore Back into the Stone Age
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 2 Sep 96 at 11:46, Enzo Michelangeli wrote: > On Sun, 1 Sep 1996 ichudov(a)algebra.com wrote: > > James Seng wrote: > > > To understand the sitution better, you should not impose America > > > idealogy and perspection on how things to be done to Singapore. > > > Singapore maybe young but there are certain culture too. I agree with that. I should therefore cease, as much as possible, to interact with them by stopping to buy anything made in Singapore. Then, let them starve, fed by their highers cultural ideas. > > > Most importantly, the move to censor certain WWW site actually > > > comes as a relieve to many people, especially parents who > > > worried about the bad influence of it. We can go into the same > > > discussion about whose responsibilty it is but before you do > > > that, please bear in mind that this is Singapore. At whose moral expanse? > Of course, one may argue that the racial, social and religious > relations are better handled the American way. That, however, is a > controversial issue, and adopting confrontational cowboy attitudes > is not going to make the social evolution any faster. Who talks of social evolution? We only talk about civil liberties. And they are damn easy to implement: Leave your neighbor do what he pleases. Mind your own business. > IMHO, the present measures represent more a gesture of appeasement > to concerned social conservatives, not differently from the CDA in > the US, than an attempt to control the flow of information. This whole paragraph is a fine example of appeasement. And the CDA *is* an attempt to control the flow, not of information, but of ideas. jfa DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee; Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants: physicists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:54 PM 9/2/96 -0700, someone purporting to be "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri(a)netcom.com> wrote: [EFF / Unicorn rant, deleted. ] >I also don't understand the anonymity fight by cpunks. it's the >wrong battle imho. ask any remailer operators how their services >are panning out. they will complain of the incessant spam and >increasing litigious pressure. I don't see any technological >solutions to these problems. if there were, they'd have been >invented now. As a former remailer operator who quit because of spam, and may restart when I can hack together a spam-reducing remailer, let me comment on this. We're only beginning to understand the technical questions for the parts of the problem that technology can do. One problem is that the technical definition of spam is "I'll know it when I see it", which is hard to write code for. And the definition of "offensive" is "one or more letters together, viewed by the appropriate reader", and remailers are good at finding that sort of reader. A lot of it is social, not technical. But improving blocking capabilities and news-cancel capabilities helps. And some problems are just _hard_ technically. Take 2-way remailers - encrypted reply blocks aren't perfect, because the system that handles them can decrypt them. Nymservers that depend on a different system supporting encrypted reply blocks help, because it forces Bad Guys to subvert two systems to identify the recipient, and you can chain that sort of thing to make it harder. But it's still tough, and that problem is fairly well-defined. Getting rid of vaguely-defined things is tougher. Mike Godwin has suggested that some of the major problems on the net are the results of "cheap speech". It's easy to send insults and hate email to people, nearly anonymously, nearly free, when only a few hostile people would bother doing it with paper mail, and most newspapers wouldn't print it. The News Media Establishment is threatened because anybody can broadcast anything they want to millions of people without spending millions of dollars for an artificially scarce TV channel that requires government permission to broadcast on. Readers are swamped because 25 million Internet users sending one line of text per day make 2 GB of Usenet/Web/Email, which is three or four orders of magnitude beyond what most people can actually read. Scale is tough, and problems that are half-solvable at one scale may be insolvable at the next order of magnitude. Anonymous remailers support several things I want to do, and that I want other people be able to do: 1) Let people have private conversations without being identified by third parties. 2) Let people have private conversations without being identified by each other, voluntarily and respecting each others' rights. 3) Let people broadcast things to the public that they might be afraid to do otherwise. 4) Let people broadcast things to the public without their reputations, good or bad, affecting readers' reactions. 5) Let people experiment with different personality and conversation styles, though this doesn't strictly require anonymity. 6) Let people communicate with government officials without risk. Not all of these things are always good; people can abuse them if they want, and one reason for experimenting with different kinds of remailers is to try to balance the good and bad that comes from facilitating those conversations. Technical capabilities of the remailer will affect how people use it; two-way-ness is a big win. I blocked president(a)whitehouse.gov on my remailer real early, though that's mainly because the government has this silly law against threatening the President. >let's face it, anonymity is a pain in the ass to support. >maybe there are other goals that are more crucial >that lie at the heart of anonymity. what cpunks are really >seaking is "assurance of freedom from retribution". when the >problem is phrased more openly like that, other solutions become >possible and worth consideration. An interesting formulation. While there are more issues than just preventing retribution, theft, and prejudice, that would be a good start. Unfortunately, the two approaches I can see to achieving it are 1) Have a perfect world with perfect people in it and perfect people running human-rights-respecting governments 2) Don't let them know your name. While there are groups that are working on bringing us closer to 1), or at least as far as "1a) Have a semi-tolerable world where the government doesn't harass you very much for what you say and doesn't single you out as a source of funds for their great plans", those folks have a long row to hoe. We can do something about 2). I'm happy to work on 1a) with people, though I won't see it in my lifetime, but you and I can work on 2) today, and accomplish something. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: Los Angeles Times article on Helsingius and anon.penet.fi
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:39 PM 9/2/96 -0800, Jim Bell (who else:-) wrote: >At the risk of sounding like a broken record (a phrase that will get ever >more obscure now that we're in the CD era...) that's why I pushing AP >(Assassination Politics.) In case anybody wonders why there _are_ relatively reasonable people like Esther Dyson who aren't happy with anonymity in spite of not liking the alternative of government control, this sort of thing _is_ one of the reasons :-) You CAN freak ALL the mundanes all the time, but it's not necessarily a good idea..... # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by Jon Lebkowsky 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:40 PM 9/2/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote: >> what *constructive* >> alternative to EFF do you propose? if you have none, please shut up. > >I think any organization that would apply political pressure rather than >bow to it would be an alternative. I think an organization in touch >enough with its own policy to prevent its staff and board from making >embarassing big brother type proposals to curtail the ability of any of us >to post without attributation would be an alternative. I think an >organization without the internal conflict and strife that has clearly >marred EFF in past and made it a laughable attempt at cohesive political >persuasion would be an alternative. I think an organization that had >official policies on the core issues which it proposes to influence would >be an alternative. > >In short, an organization that had even one of the needed elements of >legislative influence. (Cohesive, directed, persistent, and >uncompromising). "Uncompromising" is not an "element of legislative influence," at least not on this planet. -- Jon Lebkowsky <jonl(a)hotwired.com> FAX (512)444-2693 http://www.well.com/~jonl Electronic Frontiers Forum, 6PM PDT Thursdays <http://www.hotwired.com/eff> "No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough."--Saul Alinsky

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Voting Monarchist?
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unicorn(a)schloss.li wrote: <snip> >I hate lightning it's pretty, but it can be nasty. most pretty things can. > Vote Monarchist who is the candidate? LaRouche?

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Re: POT_hot
by Jon Lebkowsky 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:50 PM 9/2/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: >At 11:39 PM 9/2/96 GMT, John Young wrote: >> Foreign Affairs, Sep/Oct, Lead Essay: >> >> "Postmodern Terrorism. The terrorism of the future may be >> far more destructive than terrorism as we have known it." >> >> An informative survey and pot-heat by Walter Laqueur. >> >> Terrorism's prospects, often overrated by the media, >> the public, and some politicians, are improving as its >> destructive potential increases. Terrorism has >> replaced wars between nations of the 1800s and 1900s. >[deleted] >> Why assassinate a politician or indiscriminately kill >> people when an attack on electronic switching will >> produce far more dramatic and lasting results? If the >> new terrorism directs its energies toward information >> warfare, its destructive power will be exponentially >> greater than any it wielded in the past -- greater >> even than it would be with biological and chemical >> weapons. The single successful one could claim many >> more victims, do more material damage, and unleash far >> greater panic than anything the world has yet >> experienced. >> http://jya.com/pothot.txt (30 kb) > > ><sigh> >Am I being unreasonable to expect at least a certain degreee of logic in the >world? Why is it that this guy (Laqueur) seems to believe that the future >is filled with "greater panic than anything the world has yet experienced." >I believe that, while there may be panic, it'll be panic on the part of the >politicians, not ordinary citizens. I suppose a certain amount of bias is >to be expected, seeing as how it's Foreign Affairs magazine. A good representation of postmodern paranoia...the ingredients: a mind somewhat boggled by the extent of change (and the extent of awareness of change) occasioned by the 'information revolution,' a growing awareness of the fragile interdependence of control systems, and (this is the clincher) an inability to trust the intentions of the vast conspiratorial World Outside. -- Jon Lebkowsky <jonl(a)hotwired.com> FAX (512)444-2693 http://www.well.com/~jonl Electronic Frontiers Forum, 6PM PDT Thursdays <http://www.hotwired.com/eff> "No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough."--Saul Alinsky

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Re: SNAKEOIL? Top Secret for Windows
by peter.allan＠aeat.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

DJ> From: frogfarm(a)yakko.cs.wmich.edu (Damaged Justice) DJ> Subject: SNAKEOIL? Top Secret for Windows DJ> http://www.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win3/security/tsecret.zip DJ> ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win3/security/tsecret.zip 12070 bytes DJ> tsecret.zip TOPSECRET!: Easily encrypts any file DJ> TOPSECRET is a program to encrypt your sensitive files. ............ DJ> Shareware. Uploaded by the author. DJ> Siva Krishna DJ> sk510019(a)mail.idt.net PA> I'm interested in reading the source PA> code and any more detailed description you have. SK> I am currently not releasing the source code.Here is a copy of the zip SK> file if you get hold of a pc. -- Peter Allan peter.allan(a)aeat.co.uk

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Passive Trojan (was:Re: HAZ-MAT virus)
by Paul S. Penrod 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This has been done in the past using several vairants (but not in a image program). The key to the success is that the application in question has to be compromised to respond to these codes, either by design or by hacking. Either way the individual responsible must modify the execution mechanism, not just the data itself. Let's see -current examples of computing items with this kind of a "feature"... magic cookies, macros, OLE, DDE, MS Objects, JAVA, and the list keeps growing. On Mon, 2 Sep 1996, Jason Wong wrote: > > Actually , THINK about it, it does makes a interesting idea for a trojan > horse doesn't it ? I mean, just get a solid graphic program, insert codes > into it so that when certain conditions, i.e. a particular gif or jpg file > is view, print, etc, the trojan activates !! > ___________________________________________________________________________ > > Jason Wong (CNE, MCP) Jason(a)MCSB.COM.SG > Network Engineer > MCSB Systems Pte Ltd > ___________________________________________________________________________ > >

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Re: Los Angeles Times article on Helsingius and anon.penet.fi (fwd)
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike Godwin on E.Dyson: [please note that I'm just a conduit here; direct replies accordingly] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 02:17:12 -0700 >From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)well.com> To: Michael Froomkin <froomkin(a)law.miami.edu>, Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)well.com> Subject: Re: Los Angeles Times article on Helsingius and anon.penet.fi (fwd) Esther had written: >Now, speaking personally: I believe there are trade-offs -- which is what I >told the LA Times. I assume I was quoted accurately (although the word >"enforce" is awkward), but out of context. Anonymity can be dangerous -- >as can traceability, especially in/by repressive regimes. Therefore I would >favor allowing anonymity -- with some form of traceability only under terms >considerably stronger than what are generally required for a wiretap. >Anyone who seriously needs anonymity because of a repressive government is >likely to use a foreign (outside whatever jurisdiction he fears) server, so >that this is not a matter of "local" laws. The tracer would have to pass >through what I hope would be tighter hoops than we have now. This is surely a reasonable statement for Esther to have made, even though connotatively it may seem to have an anti-anonymity thrust to it. Who can dispute that individual freedom (of any sort) entails the potential that someone will use that freedom badly, and that the greater the freedom the greater the theoretical potential for harm? The civil-libertarian argument can't be any naive denial of this sort of analysis -- instead, it has to something that acknowledges the truth of the principle, yet simultaneously denies the inference that the principle, standing alone, amounts to a case for limiting that freedom. One way to do so is to argue that the theoretical threat is outweighed by the benefits both to society and to individuals. Another is to point out that there seems to be no evidence that the theoretical problem has transmuted itself into a real one. You may feel free to forward this. --Mike ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Law Professor Volokh Errs In Slate Article About Communications Decency Act. Set your browser to the following URL to read a critique of the Slate article by EFF's Mike Godwin and MIT's Hal Abelson: <http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/~hal/volokh-slate-critique-by-godwin-abelson.html>. Mike Godwin, EFF Staff Counsel, can be reached at mnemonic(a)eff.org or at his office, 510-548-3290. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Educating former anon.penet.fi users about other remailers
by Johan Helsingius 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>If somebody were to put together a one-page note on other remailers, >would it make sense to send it to all the penet.fi users? >A canonical cypherpunks approach would be to just write one and >send it to na000001(a)anon.penet.fi ..... na600000(a)anon.penet.fi, >but I assume either my system or Julf's would decide it was spam >and discard it (even if it were split up into 60,000 10-message chunks.) Yes, thatŽs what would happen. And I fear what woudl happen, load-wise, if I tried to send 700.000 messages. Might be a good idea to post it into the appropriate newsgroups, at least. Julf

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re:hackerlist
by Paul Reese 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:51 AM 9/1/96 EDT, you wrote: Get a clue! Why on earth would you want a list like this and why on earth would anyone want to place themselves on such a list? Dumb idea! Proves the kind of clientel that Juno opens the doorways of Internet E-mail to.... >I am planning to make a list of hackers and would appreciatte it if you >would e-mail me with the following information. >handle >e-mail >city,state >url >whether or not you would like to recieve the list when finished > thanks for your help > P. Cummings > Patrickbc(a)juno.com > > Reply-To: preese(a)erinet.com

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Re: Moscowchannel.com hack
by Rick Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

: On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Joel McNamara wrote: : > Just a matter of time before some builds a dedicated Satan type tool that : > scans for HTTP server holes or messed up file permissions to make locating : > potential victims easy. Snow replied: : Write your web site to a CD-ROM and hard-code the base directory into the : webserver. Or host it on something with mandatory access control protections. There are still a handful of us building such things, and they can give really good protection to web page contents. Rick. smith(a)sctc.com secure computing corporation

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Re: The Esther Dyson Flap
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:11 PM 9/2/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: > Esther Dyson says that anonymity on the Net can do more damage than > anonymity in other forums, and thus may need to be regulated and restricted > in various ways. > > [...] > > This is the "knife edge," or "fork in the road," I've long talked about. If > anonymity is outlawed, it will take draconian measures to enforce > it--citizen-unit ID cards, officially issued encryption keys, escrow, > monitoring of communications, massive penalties to deter illegal use of > encryption, and other police state measures. Esther Dyson has gone over to the enemy, she is chairman of the EFF, therefore the EFF has gone over to the enemy. > I don't call her our enemy. Perhaps she just hasn't thought things through > as deeply as many of us have. This seems unlikely. After all, it is her job. The net makes free speech more effective. Therefore the world must become more free, or else must suppress free speech, and thus become less free. Which side are you on? It is that simple. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:52 AM 9/3/96 -0500, Jon Lebkowsky wrote: > "Uncompromising" is not an "element of legislative influence," at least not > on this planet. Dead wrong: The pols always say "We would like your help in writing legislation, but if you want to contribute to the legislation you must accept reasonable compromise". But we do not want legislation, so we do not want to help write legislation. We want to delay legislation for as long as possible, for the longer the delay, the more the balance of power favors the net and disavors the pols. Therefore the correct strategy is simply to attack any politician who shows any interest in legislating on our issues. We have no friends on Capitol hill, and if we did have friends, it would still be necessary to denounce them as enemies. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: Free Speech and List Topics
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

qut(a)netcom.com (Dave Harman OBC) penned: >! At 5:17 AM 9/2/96, qut wrote: >No doubt the media is colluding for criminal purposes and >shady outfits like The New York Times should be seized and analysed >by Department Of Justice anti-trust invesigators. I never thought I'd say this, so I'm saying it through a remailer :) but please, skippy, don't vote Libertarian!

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Re: Passive Trojan (was:Re: HAZ-MAT virus)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:38 AM 9/3/96, Hans "Unicorn" Van de Looy, aka "Deep Throat," wrote: >:: >Request-Remailing-To: remailer(a)huge.cajones.com .... >:: >Request-Remailing-To: remailer(a)remailer.nl.com .... >:: >Request-Remailing-To: furballs(a)netcom.com (Paul S. Penrod) > >Deep Throat. Hey, Hans, ya gotta watch those "Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com" lines! At least now we know who the _other_ "Unicorn" is. How's Sequent doing? Is Casey Powell still there? --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Flux in today's HotWired/Packet
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.packet.com/flux/ The recently concluded merger of Security Dynamics Technologies Inc. with RSA Data Security Inc. may have offered us one of our last opportunities for insight into the bizarre and byzantine business world of commercial cryptography in America today. And one of the chief insights we've gleaned from Security Dynamics' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission about the merger is that the company may have bought not only a lemon, but a lemon that, when swallowed, could make Security Dynamics double over with food poisoning. Why did Security Dynamics pay nearly US$300 million for RSA, a company which had less than $1 million in profit last year on revenue of some $11 million? Furthermore, its encryption patents will expire in four years, which means that all RSA really owns is its relationships with customers such as Netscape and Hewlett-Packard. Even worse, those patents are under attack at the moment through a lawsuit filed against RSA by Cylink Corporation, an RSA competitor holding similar patents that was a one-time partner in a failed joint venture with RSA. Another lawsuit pending against RSA, Security Dynamics, and Cylink was brought by Roger Schlafly, a cryptographic researcher who is attempting to invalidate any and all patents that might attempt to monopolize public key cryptography. Indeed, in a worst case scenario, what Security Dynamics may have purchased is a huge summary judgment (against itself) should Cylink actually prevail in its suits. According to Security Dynamics' recent S-4 filing with the SEC, "RSA has been advised that, in a letter to SDI following the announcement of the proposed merger, Cylink's general counsel asserted that Cylink's compensatory damages, conservatively estimated, would exceed $75,000,000 but provided no basis for such estimate." That's the kind of negative return on investment from an acquisition that we've come to expect from America Online (remember BookLink and WAIS Inc.?)!

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Re: The Esther Dyson Flap
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:40 PM 9/3/96, Chuck Thompson wrote: >"as a citizen" You seem to be qualifying your statement. Do you mean that >she should have her right to free speech taken or stifled as chairwoman? At No. I said nothing of the kind. When people speak of "don't you believe in her right to free speech?," I try to point out that this such a "right of free speech" is not the issue at hand. >the very least, it appears that several are demanding that she espouse a >particular point of view because she is the chairwoman of an organization >which, on the whole, is assumed to have a different viewpoint. It seems to No, I said nothing like this. She is obviously free to speak anything she wishes, as a citizen or as head of an organization. It is up to members (actually: _Board_ members, as EFF is not a grassroots, member-voting organization) to decide if her support for restricting anonymous speech is consistent with EFF directions. However, as I said, if the top spokesman at EFF gives indication of having views pretty much 180 degrees out of phase with our views, it's likely we'll speak up and oppose her (or him), and perhaps even suggest that other EFF board members look into the matter. "Free speech" is not even an issue. >>Well, many of us did not pounce. Speaking for myself, I strongly suspected >>that the newspaper article had summarized a more-nuanced point and had >>effectively taken just a convenient sound bite. > >And you are to be commended for not doing so. In fact, your response to my >message is exactly what I would expect.. a well-put statement of a contrary >opinion. Thanks. --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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SRP (from the cutting-room floor)
by peter.allan＠aeat.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

JAM> Rather than divert messages, then, I propose that for each input JAM> message there is a 10% chance that a piece of cover traffic is JAM> generated. AB> The way that this kind of attack is frustrated is that dummy messages AB> are created as cover traffic by the remailer, and that at some points AB> messages can be swallowed by a remailer as junk messages. Automatic decoy traffic was in my draft, but was not in the slimmed-down document I posted to CP. This was mainly because Lance Cottrell and I agreed on that bit, and thought it could be passed over. Unlike JAM, I was in favour of decoy traffic being _inversely_ related to genuine traffic. AB> You can still do a spamming attack by recognizing the destination, AB> rather than the message: Diversion was intended to make that harder too. Eve's messages won't all go straight where she wants them. They should turn up after some of them completed the diversion, but I suggested that would sometimes be too late to track it further through the chain. As for "messages can be swallowed by a remailer as junk messages", there's a catch for the unwary in that. See below. TCM> Note that merely fiddling around with probabilities of transmission, such TCM> as described above, will not be enough. This just adds a layer of noise, TCM> which will disappear under a correlation analysis. Kelsey wrote on 28th June about correlating messages at the points of entry & exit from the remailer network. I don't know what an attacker gains by correlating _inside_ the net. Here are the bits I omitted before. DECOY MESSAGES The sending of decoy messages by users is recommended, and serves to hide statistical correlations between your sending a message and somebody receiving one. This practice should continue. It is also desirable that a remailer be able to originate decoy messages itself. Advantages include better traffic load following. The remailer knows when traffic is light and can generate more decoys. This could be important at times of low traffic such as public holidays. It would be especially important during a denial-of-service attack. When an attacker prevents messages from reaching the remailer (in the hope of isolating a small number of target messages) a locally-produced set of decoys, immune from the denial-of-service, could be crucial. DESTINATION Addressing all automatic decoys ultimately to "nobody" would ensure that they circulate in the network and then disappear. Nonconservation of message number should prove annoying to an eavesdropper. (An implementation detail on this will be mentioned later.) Addressing some of them outside the network, to test newsgroups for instance might also be useful - confusing an attacker looking at the point of exit. NUMBER A possible means of matching the traffic would be to use an exponential- along the lines of those in thermodynamics. decoys = max ( D.exp(-kT) , E ) The "max" operator here ensures that every time a batch of messages is sent a minimum number of decoys will be included. Values for the constants can doubtless be suggested by remailer operators familiar with the traffic load. ..... SILENT SPAMMING Re-encryption as discussed here will not do any good if remailers allow "silent spamming". To exploit this feature the attacker addresses his messages to "nobody" (or "null" in Mixmaster jargon). These mails fill the message pool, sweeping out all the target messages, but when they come to be sent they disappear. They do not show on the net, they do not need to be recognised and eliminated from the search. All the attacker sees leaving the spammed host is undiluted target mail. Obviously the remailer should detect messages of this type and process them without storing them in the message pool. Any message that will not be delivered to a remote host comes into this category, including those to most local accounts. I briefly examined the source of 2.0.3 (from ftp://utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/replay/pub/remailer on 11 July 1996) and could not find code to deal with this attack. [Cottrell tells me this is on the to-do list.] -- Peter Allan peter.allan(a)aeat.co.uk

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KILL ALL RUSSIAN IMIGRANTS
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Return-Path: <cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com> To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Kill all "libertarians" From: dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 96 15:48:31 EDT Organization: Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y. Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com >From nobody(a)REPLAY.COM Mon Sep 2 12:26:36 1996 Received: by bwalk.dm.com (1.65/waf) via UUCP; Mon, 02 Sep 96 15:42:57 EDT for dlv Received: from basement.replay.com by uu.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.061193-PSI/PSINet) via SMTP; id AA18013 for dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com; Mon, 2 Sep 96 12:26:36 -0400 Received: (from replay@localhost) by basement.replay.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id SAA11752 for dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com; Mon, 2 Sep 1996 18:26:28 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 18:26:28 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <199609021626.SAA11752(a)basement.replay.com> To: dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com From: nobody(a)REPLAY.COM (Anonymous) Organization: Replay and Company UnLimited Xcomm: Replay may or may not approve of the content of this posting Xcomm: Report misuse of this automated service to <abuse(a)REPLAY.COM> Subject: All russians are scum. No exceptions. Return-Path: <cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com> To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: Sen. Leahy's "impeccable cyberspace credentials" From: dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM) Comments: Dole/Kemp '96! Date: Mon, 02 Sep 96 01:19:37 EDT Organization: Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y. Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com jonathon <grafolog(a)netcom.com> writes: > On Sun, 1 Sep 1996, James A. Donald wrote: > > > > I agree with what you are saying but not all polititions are that bad. > > > You make it sound as if their are no politisions are for freedom of the > > > net. > > So who is the exception? > > Harry Browne Libertarian Party Candidate. Harry Browne is a fucking statist. All politicians are scum. No exceptions. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Blissful? Ignorance (was SCO giving free licenses to UNIX OpenServer)
by attila 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

** Reply to note from Hallam-Baker <hallam(a)ai.mit.edu> 09/02/96 5:15pm -0400 --or another Hallum-Baker ignorant rant v. unix, bsd, etc. = Eric Murray wrote: = > = > Scottauge(a)aol.com writes: = = > > Read, Understand, and Delight... Microsoft maybe in trouble at last. = > = > I doubt it. People don't use Microsoft products because = > of their quality or functionality. = = Errmm.. hate to disappoint but SCO UNIX started life as Xenix which = was written by Microsoft in the dark ages. = = the **original** SCO product and versions up to 3.something **were** xenix --not written by MS, but simple unix V7 which was capable of 64K program and 64K data and would run on a 286. MS had a substantial investment in SCO when the old man was screwing things up (before the old man was forced out for sexual harassment --his brother had long since raped Convergent and was gated). MS had made the V7 deal with Western Electric with Billy thinking he had an exclusive on **the** way to go --better than sliced bread; V7 was not commercially available --only to universities because of a WE consent decree with the government. Billy was in seventh heaven --sure he had the deal of a lifetime! not so: Bell Labs shortly announced the breakup and decided to commercially ship System III --it was available in source code only, but the price was only about $25K in the first go around, and you could produce binaries for sublicensing for $250 or some such --it was not a great price, but it was doable. System III was not restricted to 64K plus 64K. One of my major conract customers at the time was WE --System V R2 was already available internally, including a decent VAX port (unlike the really piss-poor V32 Berkeley rewrote into BSD 4.2 --offering it back to Bell Labs for free, which was spurned from the Ivory Tower at Murrey Hill...) With the WE and AT&T breakup, and the multiple licensing activity, Gates hit the roof --threw several well known major temper tantrums, including at least one at WE/Labs that I am directly aware of. Gates vowed to bury UNIX in all flavours and has had that intention ever since --non-stop. Billy-boy does not carry a grudge lightly --he not only gets very mad and comes off the wall (or handle), but he has every intention of getting even. I've always figured Billy suffers from Tourette's for his mannerisms, his uncontrollable rage, &c. --just has not learned to manage it, and figured his Daddy could solve it all --and now there is an item of $10billion give or take a few --buys a lot of hate. part of Billy's vindictive plan against AT&T involved hiring Dave Cutler from DEC --Cutler was the self-styled leader of the VMS team, also with a bad case of temper-tantrums I saw dave literally shatter an impossible to break WE 500 series telephone simply by "hanging" it up.... (...time to clear the decks!) and that was for NT --great job! Cutler took the deal thinking he had a free hand --at Billy's place? --naive. and Dave had to put up with the Windows legacy... the crap that goes on inside NT is not all Cutler's direct fault. and that is Billy Boy and the SCO club... and death lurking in the alley for unix --but I doubt he will be able to kill it --there is just too large a crowd of professionals who refuse to use MS --not just because the product is crap, but because of Billy. = > > This is for single user home based UNIX systems. = > = > Single-user UNIX isn't all that useful. = matter of opinion --works fine, just like the big guys, on a workstation. so it limits you to one login -??? runs full multi-tasking re-entrant just like multi-user. somewhere along the line, you were standing behind the door and forgot to listen when single user limitations were defined. = Listen to the guys who built it. UNIX = is a program development environment. = that's so ludicrous, it's funny. you figure everyone just sat around playing with themselves? I wouldn't tell that to Thompson, Ritchie, Kerrigan and friends... unix was a **tool**. = In the early years it was = interesting because there was source available, that ceased to be = the case years ago. = and AT&T source has always been available at some price. BSD source from 4.2 through the current (and last) 4.4 is freely available, give Walnut Creek $29,00 and you have it all and pay the shipping from Free Software Foundation (GNU) and you have all that too (most of which is on the freeBsd and Linux CDROMs anyway. = Multi-user ain't much better. Listen to the guys who built it. apparently you never figured out there was anything after SCO's initial releases --they were junk as was their first several passes at System III and V -they tried to live with their Xenix Heritage --including trying to make System III run on a 286 --an abysmal product. today SCO is shipping SysV R4+ --the last Labs and Unix International version which also contains all BSD calls which were added by SUN under contract --it's a good solid product. however, despite years of kernal hacking for WE, I still prefer straight BSD flavours. Commercially, SUN leads that pack, followed by DEC with Ultrix which is BSD by another name... HP is sort of System V R4+ Even IBM is Unix --they just call it AIX and it is BSD based --also very solid and thoroughly supported --you can not even get IBM heavy iron without AIX --MVS &c. run as processes. Ken Olsen, founder of DEC, called unix "snake oil." DEC's VMS is good, but was originally a DCL platform. security is excellent by comparison to early unix, but it is not open (or was not, to be correct) --and source is virtually out of the question. FYI, both unix and VMS are derived from Multix... Today DEC ships Ultrix on everything, and VMS basically only on the mainframes. Ken Olsen was forced out when the sales staff blew Ford Motor Co out of the water on an immense deal, along with an even larger Fed contract --essentially the salesmen refused to sell unix (required in both bid specs) on the hardware.... DEC started sliding, and Ken was "retired." = Today Linux probably represents the future of the UNIX family, it = allows people who want to hack at the OS level access to the sources = of a fully functioning OS. This allows people to add in new kernel = features, schedulers and other exotica without having to write a = whole new O/S. = the only reasons NT will end up in big business is a) politics, b) freebies, and c) intimidation. MIS staffs will not choose it, MSNBC just canned NT 4.0 as worthless junk. Linux has a large base, but it is a warmed over version of Bell System V --rewritten supposedly from scratch by a husband/wife team (I might have believed it had it been the husband/wife team of Peter Conklin who was also on the DEC VMS gig from the gate --I gave him his first job out of Harvard in 1962 --arrogant, but 100%. = Just don't confuse it with "home computing", this is geek computing = and you better have a lot of interest in computing to use it. = that's pure bullshit, again. actually, FreeBSD is easier to handle than Linux and more professionally supported --including ongoing active development, It qualifies as home computing in my book --you take the CD, copy two disks out to kick it off, and say GO. comes up in X windows... geek code? get off your MicroSlop mentality limitation. = Home = computing is the market for users who need a system that's simpler = than a VCR or they can't use it. = that's total nonsense, your British class system is showing its ignorant face again -you are insulting what little intelligence the American middle class does have... unless you really wish to limit the users to TV set-top boxes which can "surf" a few canned sites from assholes-on-line, etc. the children of the household will never settle for that! = At one time that meant Apple, today = it means Microsoft, it will never mean Linux - not unless someone = can make Linux much much simpler than it is at present and provide = decent WISIWIG tools such as editors etc. designed for use by aunt = Ethel. = give me a break! your igonance is showing --it's plain and simple an MS advertising jugernaut! both linux and freebsd have X built in --FreeBSD actually goes directly to X at bootup --and there are plenty of tools,editors, etc in X --and freeBSD runs Linux binaries. and there are a number of high grade packages which are fully supported. Secondly, SUN binaries for X86 are no more expensive than MS is heading for with NT which they will use to "replace" W95 (W95 was just another MicroSlop holding pattern). just a simple fact: MicroSlop advertising buries anything and everything. and, if that does not work: Intimidation is just another form of Communication and Billy's real good at, witness the DOJ and FTC round 2 unfolding now. apparently your schooling is limited to MS courses.... MS is a pure virus on its own, if not the software, than certainly the company. why does MS have 85% of the desktop? --the power of money and lies --and a loud noisy parade with a bandwagon, free beer, and all that good stuff that goes with predatory market practices. fair competition? why should MS be fair when its stated goal is to take a fraction of **every** transaction on any network. Billy has no tolerance for the existence of anything other than Billy's creations and control --total control. It does not matter if W95 crashes more often than 3.1 --upgrade it for more money! Money is the name of the game at MS, not decent product for a reasonable price. Always has been, always will.... --attila -- Now, with a black jack mule you wish to harness, you walk up, look him in the eye, and hit him with a 2X4 over the left eye. If he blinks, hit him over the right eye! He'll cooperate --so will politicians.

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[NOISE] The Doors
by Vipul Ved Prakash 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Doors was not only about freedom and love, but about crypto too! Notice these lines from the song "Five to One" Old [cipher] gets old and young get stronger May take a week baby, may take longer [to crack] they've [clinton] got the guns and we've got the numbers gonna win we will take 'em over, com'on. :) - Vipul -- Vipul Ved Prakash | - Electronic Security & Crypto vipul(a)pobox.com | - Internet & Intranets 91 11 2247802 | - Web Development & PERL 198 Madhuban IP Extension | - Linux & Open Systems Delhi, INDIA 110 092 | - (Networked) Multimedia

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Re: The Esther Dyson Flap
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:11 PM 9/2/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Esther Dyson says that anonymity on the Net can do more damage than >anonymity in other forums, and thus may need to be regulated and restricted >in various ways. I disagree, as "the Net of a Million Lies" (to use Vinge's >term) has grown up with anonymity, and few people take the anonymous (or >not) rants and charges made in the millions per day with the same degree of >certainty they take print comments. Put another way, there is no clear and >present danger. Indeed, I support the elimination of concepts such as "slander" and "libel" precisely because they cause more harm than good. Currently, there is an illusion among ordinary citizens that "if that was untrue, you could sue him for libel!" despite the fact that this is rarely practical. In that way, the law actually adds credibility to what should be an incredible claim. Eliminate libel suits, and you've eliminated any presumption that because it's been spoken or is in print, it's likely to be correct. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

agree with all of BS's points... >Anonymous remailers support several things I want to do, >and that I want other people be able to do: >1) Let people have private conversations without being identified >by third parties. >2) Let people have private conversations without being identified >by each other, voluntarily and respecting each others' rights. >3) Let people broadcast things to the public that they might >be afraid to do otherwise. >4) Let people broadcast things to the public without their >reputations, good or bad, affecting readers' reactions. >5) Let people experiment with different personality and >conversation styles, though this doesn't strictly require anonymity. >6) Let people communicate with government officials without risk. I suspect all these items can be accomplished using means other than anonymous remailers. anonymous remailers are a good start, but possibly there is still technology waiting to be invented to support some of these features. one possibility that I'm very interested in: consider that Usenet was not built from the ground-up to support anonymity, nor was the sendmail system. when anonymity was introduced to Usenet, everyone went crazy, and it was only marginally supported. I think I may work on some technical proposals along these lines for future posting here, because much of this dialogue has me thinking. what cpunks might consider doing is creating an alternative message distribution system like Usenet that starts from the premise that anonymous communication is allowed and trying to grow it. btw, McCullagh's and other's claims about "ghettoization" of anonymity strike me as very specious. as long as people can use anonymity in some forum they want, I think that's acceptable. what's the equivalent of a "ghetto" in cyberspace? you can't go into a meeting of professionals wearing a ski mask, although you might be able to create such a forum yourself. does that mean you are in some kind of a "ghetto"? oh, brother.

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