December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Native American Encryption?!
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) said: >They were the Navajo (or Navaho) code talkers. Kahn's "The >Codebreakers" has a discussion of this, as I recall. Probably the >"Encyclopedia Britannica" will also a mention of it. It's mentioned in a bunch of crypto sources, but coincidentally, PBS just ran an entire show about this precise subject a couple weeks back. Not just passing mention...the whole show was about this. Therefore talking to PBS people would likely yield some good info... and possibly videos. >> 2) If one used a natural language for encryption, and the would-be code >> crackers did not know it was natural language (say, Hittite), could they crack >> it? I seem to remember that hieroglyphs were undecipherable until the >> Rosetta Stone was discovered. But maybe current techniques would do a >> better job....? > >These are codes, not ciphers, and are of course not very secure. Err...."of course"??? Codes are (all else being equal) quite a bit more secure than ciphers. (or do I have "code" and "cypher" reversed...whatever. :-) There's a classic SF story, whose title I forget, about anthropologists trying to figure out writings of a dead species on Mars. The table of elements finally proved to be the Rosetta Stone equivalent. The interesting thing about codes, which in a sense includes all natural languages, versus ciphers, is that code systems represent semantics. If the underlying semantics is radically different than what the code-breaker knows...too bad. >Germans and Japanese in WW II obviously did not have enough time to >find native Navajo speakers, and I suspect few books on that language >were available at that time, hence the scheme was temporarily secure. > >Otherwise, forget it. It was more complicated than that. They used a hybrid system that native Navajo speakers could not decrypt, because the system used not only Navajo, but on top of that, arbitrary (and newly invented) metaphors for concepts, and (newly invented) puns to represent ciphers, too. It is certainly true that part of the security was "through obscurity", but (A) that part was effective..."security through obscurity" can be effective over short periods of time...and (B) they layered ciphers on top of codes. The obscure linguistic aspects of Navajo vs. other modern languages is also said to have played a part, but I haven't researched this yet, so I won't comment. Arthur Chandler <arthurc(a)crl.com> said: >I seem to remember that hieroglyphs were undecipherable until the >Rosetta Stone was discovered. But maybe current techniques would do a >better job....? In the absence of a Rosetta-Stone-sort-of-thing, we're still lost. For instance, the Easter Island hieroglyphs are still completely mystifying. Some of Nyquist's mathematical results are still classified, so one never knows, but... Arbitrary semantic systems encoded in writings are not decipherable, period, barring some breakthrough in mathematical semantics...don't hold your breath. :-) Doug

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Re: Spread-spectrum net (vulnerability of)
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jkreznar(a)ininx.com (John E. Kreznar) said: >Not even the antenna should be visible. Remember, for spread spectrum radio >detectable only by the intended receivers (which use the correct spread- >spectrum code for coherent detection), the power density should be hardly >distinguishable from the ambient noise. This is true only for casual observers. If the FCC were after you, they could most definitely triangulate on unusual noise sources as well as they could a coherent signal. Power signals are a giveaway. >One way to arrange this is to put the antenna inside of a physically >secure perimeter, outside of which the power density is too low for >noncoherent detection. The perimeter can be optically opaque (e.g. a >building), as long as it leaks enough r.f. in the direction of the >receiver(s) for coherent detection. Preventing noncoherent detection >may often require _attenuation_ of an otherwise too-powerful signal, >and the building may serve part of this function. Good enough as far as it goes. But this implies a large drop in efficiency of the transmitted signal. That's not a stopper...*if* you've got power to spare. But that implies enough power for bad guys to triangulate your noise source...ouch. If they pin you down to within a building, you've lost. There are other approaches...phase-sweeping...phase-conjugation... Doug

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Re: Breaking DES
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thank you, Perry, for some good comments that were flame-free. I personally appreciate that, especially considering that your comments are both apropos and good food for thought. Doug >pmetzger(a)lehman.com said: >Karl Lui Barrus says: >> So maybe it's only of theoretical interest, sort of like differential >> cryptanalysis against the DES - which requires 10^47 chosen >> plaintexts. >> >> Why don't you mail Biham and Shamir that their method sucks. It's >> fairly infeasible as well. > >It *IS* infeasable, and they realize it. The breakthrough was >differential cryptanalysis itself, and the discovery that DES was >fairly resistant to it. The fact that they made ANY crack in it was >kind of neat, by the way. > >A huge number of chosen plaintexts is of course pretty much not >possible in practice, especially since you might not get any chosen >plaintexts at all!

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Re: Breaking DES
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

pmetzger(a)lehman.com said: >Each DES block is eight bytes. You can't use hashing -- the idea is >nonsense in context. Did you read the original post? Yes, I did. If hashing doesn't work, you'll have to say why not. It's a technique that works in most other situations. >First of all, its actually twice that because you really need 16 >bytes. As I said, we can tackle this if anyone cares to...it's unclear that this is an invitation, but assuming it is: hashing gives a first-pass screening good for every 1/256 calculations, given the assumptions I stated. For each collision more work is needed...but you haven't invited that analysis, nor addressed it yourself. >Second of all, the method is still impractical. I was merely >giving the easiest and most obvious attack on it. Impractical? Your response to Karl implied that it was *impossible*. If you wish to apologize to Karl, and say that it is merely "impractical", then I will agree with you and drop the subject. The expense required definitely indicates that it is "impractical." >I see no reason to continue this. I don't think your argument has >credibility. Clearly you are preparing to drop the argument because you sense that your tactic of flaming didn't work. I welcome the lessening of flames, so thank you for that. We could use less flames here. Doug

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Re: Native American Encryption?!
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Median writes: > I may be in trouble for not knowing basic literature, but if so so be > it. Would a code you created yourself be secure? If you create your > own language from scratch, and the 'enemy' never gets something to act > as Rosetta Stone, is it still not secure? Or is the "aliens figure out > our language with lots of computers" cliche bogus? > I want to avoid casually dismissing Median's question without writing a mini-essay on code-breaking. Especially when so many fine and accessible (easy to read) books on code-breaking are available. (To find them, cruise your local library. I recall the Herbert S. Zim book as being a very fine introduction. Basic, and nonmathematical. But a good start. I read it in junior high school, many years ago. I was reminded of it recently, when I think Whit Diffie cited it as an influence on him as well--he obviously was more influenced by it than I was, as he went into crypto and I went into physics, a much less interesting field.) Basically, word-frequency analysis kill simple codes. Replace the word "the" with the string "globflq" and it's still going to be fairly obvious that "globflq" means "the." And so on. And, as Median mentioned, a few words may become known, in all the usual ways, and thus a Rosetta Stone has been found. The issue of communication with extraterrrestrials--some day perhaps--is an interesting one. I have no idea what work has been done on "breaking the code" when almost no clues exist. Some SF writers have explored this idea. But in summary, codes are a poor approach. The entropy of coded messages gives clues about the underlying plaintext and eventually the code falls. Usually fairly quickly. Ciphers (or cyphers) are superior, as the entropy of the ciphertext can be very high (roughly, "maximally random," though I don't want to get into what randomness means here). Kahn's "The Codebreakers" remains the definitive book. All Cypherpunks should at least read the paperback abridgment of the original massive book. "Kahn on Codes" is also pretty good. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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pornography & the ``cypherpunk cause''
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

First of all, a clarification. I raised this issue with EFF because I'm utmostly concerned about upholding their sterling image, not because I am trying to start a flame war or engage in a sniper attack. If I had sent email to a few key people there I would have gotten nowhere (as my email actually proves). Here we have a *small personal forum* to discuss this in *unemotional* terms. I raised it in that spirit and am very disillusioned to see it all dragged through the gutter by many respondents. People are reacting like I've said, There Is No Cypherpunk Cause or Eric Hughes and T.C. May Are Traitors. So, I'm quite relieved that D. Frissell has posted some cool comments on case law and others who have focused on the issue of *operator knowledge* related to the law, which was one of my chief concerns from the beginning. * * * S. Steele <ssteele(a)eff.org> >My warning to sysops simply said that these files were listed >on a federal indictment, so the "lack of knowledge of the age of the >depicted people" defense remains The bulletin strongly suggests that the files constitute illegal child pornography. therefore, that would imply to a sensible operator that the age of the people pictured is not above that allowed for legal pornography. The point of *requiring knowledge of age*, in my view, seems to be a subset of a more important idea of *knowing the pictures violate the law*. Knowing the age of the participants is *one* way that one might know that the pictures violate the law. But one may come to that conclusion otherwise. For example, learning that they are the target of a federal investigation into child pornography would imply to a high degree of probability they are `illegal'. Of course, I don't claim to be a lawyer, and this is just one interpretation. perhaps it is mistaken. feel free to correct and insult me at the same time (what fun is it without both?). * * * I would like to say the following. My analogy to the CERT warning that appeared here seems to have completely escaped many, or perhaps everyone is intentionally evading it. The metaphor is extremely compelling. Both are sent to operators in order to bring something to their attention they `might' need to fix by an outside party generally interested in the operators own best interests. While I'm not sure that what CERT did was apropos, that warning was so *delicately worded*. In contrast the EFF announcement SHOUTS IN YOUR EAR. the CERT announcement was extremely diplomatic. the EFF announcement was SCREECHING. Do `we' have *any* consistency, sophistication, or coherence as a group? Recent messages have DISMAYED me. is `our' philosophy nothing but Beavis&Butthead style ``Gubberment and the Fedz and Pigs are THINGS THAT SUCK and EFF is a THING THATS COOL.'' Or do `we' have no philosophy at all? Are `we' just blind, crosseyed, and elitist `codeheads' that char newbies for cruel sport? Is it better to just ignore the `politics of cryptography' which coincidentally involves things like what has been called the `Tim May .sig Agenda' because some people might have strong opinions? If `we' don't have our own house in order, `we' are nothing but LOUD HYPOCRITES. If you don't clean your dirty laundry, IT STINKS. Excuse me, but I think the press adores the Cypherpunk cause, and `we' got press exposure such as the NYT and Wired article, because there appears to be LEADERS and a DEFINITE POLITICAL AGENDA. It appears, reading from those, that perhaps we even view the whole matter of free cryptography use as a MORAL ISSUE, which of course would seem to imply we possess some MORALITY to so claim. Oh yes, what was that hand-wringing a few months ago on the list about the ``MOVEMENT STALLING''? I wonder why! who posted that, anyway? I forget. p.s. I dare someone to post that old CERT announcement sent to E.H. that was posted here and caused such a noxious stink here. Look at how gentle it really is. In fact, I would recommend that future announcements of this sort look to it as a model. It clearly has been finetuned past many revisions. As much as I hate to admit it, CERT has a lot of expertise in dealing with this kind of thing. If anyone wants to emulate them, don't reinvent the wheel. p.p.s. go ahead, flame me into oblivion. ah, anonymously is even better! from people we've never *heard* of before on the list! yes, let everone up to the top tell me what a jerk I am for caring. please be as *emotional* as possible. defend the silly announcement or the Cypherpunk Status Quo as if I had accused *you* of being a child pornographer or traitor. Even better, banish me from the list for my thoughtcrimes! Yes, cyberspatial hemlock is what I need right now.

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Re: Breaking DES
by wmo＠rebma.rebma.mn.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Whenever Perry Metzger defends an opinion of his well, somebody whines. Whenever Perry Metzger disagrees with someone's arguments, someone else crys "unfair! He's using his WITS on me!" Whenever Perry Metzger has to stop and demonstrate something as simple as arithmetic to end an argument, someone cries "foul! sarcasm! Hey, he's not playing nice!" Y'all need to develop slightly thicker skins. Perry's efforts could serve to raise the thought level of other posters to this list, if they'd stop reacting to each prod with an irritated swipe back at the prodder. I like the strife on this list. Happy people getting along famously are dull. (Someone could consider adding to the cypherpunk philosophy: Cypherpunks write code, and cypherpunks are irritable.) -Bill

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MEETING?: Albuquerque cypherpunks
by Kragen J Sittler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sorry to waste yet more list bandwidth... but I have seen many meeting announcements posted on cypherpunks. I would love to attend a cypherpunks meeting, but unfortunately, I have seen none within a thousand miles. So, Albuquerque cypherpunks, such as Mike Diehl, the Mystic Homeboy, and any others whom I don't know, please email me at this address. I don't know if there are enough of us to have an actual meeting, but it would be nice to get together and talk even if not. Kragen p.s. I am subscribed at to1sittler(a)apsicc.aps.edu. Please do NOT email me there. Use only xentrac(a)phobos.unm.edu. (Kragen Sittler)

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New aproach in pgp-randomizer!!!
by blaster＠kiae.su 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello! Today I saw paraphysics randomizer in pgp: pgp -kg was run; it ask me about user id and passphrase; then it run generation (it wrote like this: ............ ++++); But, as we see, it did not ask about key typing!!! The most intresting pgp generate key pair and rendseed.bin-file. I thinck this is related to new topsecret paraphysics randomyser (today is 13.10.93).:) Some words about technical ditails: Hardwate - i486; Software - MS-DOS 3v30 (I boot from protected floppy and ran good antivitus utility before keypair generation). PGP 2v3a was run. I have expiriance in pgp (i maintain pgp-keys server). I keep keypair and randseed file and try to repiad this fantastic result, but paraphysic energy is go out :). Mr. Zimmermann, I hope, that this was really paraphysic (or my mistake:(), because the trust to crypt-program is very unstable thing.

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Re: Spread-spectrum net (vulnerability of)
by George A. Gleason 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

RE your item, "a sort of virtual-space map, which would reveal nothing about actual phyical location of the sites or the person you are contacting." I'm not so sure... in cellular systems, cells must know where the handsets are located in order to send incoming calls. Your transmitter has a physical location which could presumably be tracked in the normal manner, and I would expect the overall routing information in a net to be susceptible to traffic analysis in any case. An individual who is using the system to communicate wouldn't be able to find the physical address of another user, but e.g. an intelligence agency which was looking at the entire network would. Even assuming spread-spectrum and various link encryption techniques on top of whatever end-user encryption is supplied; with enough traffic and enough time, it should be possible to do TA. Or have I missed something....? -gg

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Spread Spectrum Nets (Way to do safely)
by Robert J Woodhead 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Succinctly, use the purloined letter technique -- hide it in plain sight. There are RF bands set aside for unlicensed low-power operation; some new phones use spread-spectrum techniques in these bands. Build and sell wireless ethernet nodes that talk using these techniques. Customers will demand strong encryption to prevent their data leaking out and outsiders sneaking in, so you have a good reason for adding this to the product. Develop a robust set of protocols that automatically manage the net, which is logically dynamic (movement of nodes and episodes of interference are logically equivalent to dynamic modification of the topology of the net. You can consider each node to be on N ethernets, where N is the number of nodes it is currently able to talk to, each ethernet having only two members.) Now the kicker; the nodes can be programmed to only talk to other nodes known to them (ie: the office work-group, building, etc), or to freely accept and route messages from "alien" nodes. Given a population of "liberal" message passing nodes, one can then add a new layer of routing protocols that do regional networking, with dynamic re-routing as needed. Purchasers of the wireless nodes should be encouraged to enable the "pass-through" option, and the protocols should guarantee that assisting in the passing on of messages does not affect local net performance. If you do it this way, you'll succeed much faster because people will be paying you to do it. You'll have more money for R&D, and you'll have a lot more people bitching if someone tries to take your toys away. The protocol design is, as they say, left as an exercise to the reader. It isn't all that difficult.

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Too Many Messages? Not!
by Arthur Chandler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As the culprit who started the "Native American Encryption" thread, I'd like to speak out in thanks and in favor of many answers to a question. It's true that lots of folks correctly identified Navajo as the source pf the language used. But lots of other details came in, one post at a time, that clarified the picture, and made it both more accurate and more interesting to folks interested in this fascinating chapter in the history of coding. The fact that Navajo was originally all-oral, but is now written; that the talkers used a compound of Navajo and on-the-fly slang; that real-language systems are immeasurably harder to crack than encrypted messages if you don't know they are real-life languages; etc. etc. -- I for one got a great deal out of the thread, including some references to follow up on. And all this has made me wonder if real-life languages, as opposed to algorthymic encryption schemes,.... Well, that's another thread.

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DES
by Jamie Jamison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Two questions about DES. 1) If the current, 56 bit, DES system is so easy to break why don't people switch over to a DES system that uses a larger key space, say 128 bits? People obviously aren't, so what's the barrier to this? 2) How much longer would it take to break triple DES versus standard DES using one of the key-breaking machines described? As an aside I'll point out that I go by the Yakima Research Station once a month when I'm out with my National Guard unit, this is the radio dish that's on the cover of _The Puzzle Palace_. It's not a very large installation. Jamie Jamison niteowl(a)u.washington.edu

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Notes from House Hearing on Cryptography Export Controls
by djw＠eff.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

October 12, 1993 House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Economic Policy, Trade, and the Enviornment Hearing on mass market cryptography and export controls Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.), Chair [A hopefully informative and probably biased account of the hearing by EFF] Committee Members present: Gejdenson, Cantwell (D-Wash.), Fingerhut (D-Ohio), Rohrbacher (R-Calif.) Manzullo (R-Ill.) Witnesses: PANEL 1 (Open) J. Hendren, Arkansas Systems (A data security firm that does a lot of international banking work) Ray Ozzie, IRIS Associates for Business Software Alliance (Lotus Notes developer) Stephen Walker, Trusted Information Systems for Software Publishers Association Philip Zimmermann, PGP developer Don Harbert, Digital Eqiupment Corp. PANEL 2 (Secret Session) NSA representative Opening Statement of Gejdenson: "This hearing is about the well intentioned attempts of the National Security Agency to try to control the uncontrollable.... The NSA itself acknowledges that if you have a long distance telephone line and a modem, you can send this software anywhere in the world. If you have a computer and a modem you can take this software off of the Internet anywhere in the world.... I do not question the value of the information sought by the National Security Agency. But once it is determined that the dispersion of this software cannot be controlled, then however much we might want to protect our ability to obtain information, it is beyond our means to do so. Just as in the case of telecommunications, the National Security Agency is attempting to put the genie back in the bottle. It won't happen; and a vibrant and productive sector of American indsutry may be sacrificed in the process." The main points raised by witnesses were these: 1. DES and other strong encryption which is barred by ITAR is in the public domain and available on the global market from foreign software manufacturers: -Ray Ozzie used his laptop and a modem to show how to get a DES implementation from ftp.germany.eu.net. The committee loved it and most of them seemed to understand what was going on on the screen, even though they had never heard of ftp. -Stephen Walker described the results of an SPA study which uncovered over 250 cryptography packages which offer DES-based or stronger algorithms. -Phil Zimmermann testified that he designed PGP from publicly available information. 2. Foreign DES implementations are just as good as US versions. Surprisingly enough, this is a contentious issue. Some members of the committee seemed to have been told by someone or another that foreign versions of DES may not be as strong as those that are made in the USA. If this were true, then export controls might still be justified despite the numerous foreign versions of DES on the market. In my view, this is a pretty desperate argument. -Steve Walker demonstrated that all DES works the same way by encrypting a passage from Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik with several different foreign DES packages, and then decrypting them. Surprise! They all sounded just the same. 3. Lots of money is being lost by US software/hardware vendors: -Don Harbert from DEC told of loses of over $70 Million in just the last few months. -BSA estimates that export controls exclude access to a global market the is $6-9 Billion. 4. People want their privacy -Phil Zimmermann told the committee about his experience with PGP users and how badly people need and want to protect their privacy in electronic environments Committee Responses: Overall, the committee was quite sympathetic to the witnesses. Chairman Gejdenson seemed very supportive of changing export controls. Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, no flaming liberal, said, "the cold war is over. I sympathize with everything that has been said here." ................................................................... Daniel J. Weitzner, Senior Staff Counsel <djw(a)eff.org> Electronic Frontier Foundation 1001 G St, NW Suite 950 East Washington, DC 20001 202-347-5400 (v) 202-393-5509 (f)

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bad news from Georgia (the Republic of)
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This might be interesting, though international, to many of you. Seems a certain Internet node is perceived as vital to the Georgians in their struggles. Forwarded message:

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Re: Native American Encryption?!
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Navajo (Navaho) Indians. Referred to as Code Talkers. I believe you'll find something in David Kahns "The Code Breakers". They were used in tactical situations. To break an otherwise unknown language would require context, such as good traffic flow analysis and otherwise good intelligence. I beleive there was a program on A&E (TV) on the Navajo code talkers in the Pacific (WWII). Navajo code talkers used lots of colloquilisms and all new each other more or less. You could have ended up attacking language code in sets between two code talkers.

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from a source who said "NOT FOR ATTRIBUTION" re: National Performance Review (fwd)
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A "National Privacy Protection Board" ?! Forwarded message: > Posted-Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 08:35:15 -0400 > Message-Id: <9310131235.AA08993(a)linc.cis.upenn.edu> > X-Sender: farber(a)linc.cis.upenn.edu > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 08:35:15 -0400 > From: farber(a)central.cis.upenn.edu (David Farber) > Subject: from a source who said "NOT FOR ATTRIBUTION" re: National Performance Review > Precedence: list > > > "The Vice President's recent report "From Red Tape to Results: Creating a > Government that Works Better and Costs Less (National Performance Review) > is peppered with recommendations about how to use information technology to > "reinvent government." They would put in place an administrative > infrastructure that empowers agencies and tracks progress, and undoing much > of the entrenched bureaucracy that evolved and got ossified in the single > vendor-mainframe era. > > The meat behind the recommendations, teased together with much help from > industry and information technology experts, is in a yet unreleased > technical report, and it appears that it may never be vetted in public. The > reason seems to be fears within the VP's public relations hirearchy, that > the background report may generate controversy. This one should- among the > ossified. Early and inaccurate drafts have begun circulating, raising risks > that many of the good ideas will be stillborn as bureaucratic barriers that > threaten the status quo are errected. > > The recommendations include no-brainers (placing all agencies on the > Internet and spreading e-mail through all agencies), huge $ savers > (generating agency agreements for integrating tactical law enforcemnt > network technology) and actual innovations (replacing the infamous "GSA > Schedule" (which slows federal procurement of IT and raises costs) with a > real time electronic marketplace. Some short acronym agencies appear > sensitive to a proposal for a National Privacy Protection Board. > > Curious? Take a look at the report on the UNC Sunsite Gopher. Want to know > more contact the VP and tell him!" > > > -- -=> mech(a)eff.org <=- Stanton McCandlish Electronic Frontier Foundation Online Activist & SysOp NitV-DC BBS 202-232-2715, Fido 1:109/? IndraNet 369:111/1, 14.4V32b 16.8ZyX

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Re: Native American Encryption?!
by an41418＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If nothing else, adding encryption on top of the Navajo language makes known-plaintext much more difficult. Wonderer ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Re: Spread Spectrum Nets (Way to do safely)
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert Woodhead writes: > Succinctly, use the purloined letter technique -- hide it in plain sight. > There are RF bands set aside for unlicensed low-power operation; some > new phones use spread-spectrum techniques in these bands. It's more than just purloined-letter issues - it's *legal*. That means that the FCC won't be triangulating around to find and destroy your transmitters, which is good. So you're back to threats from the CIA/DEA/NSA/FBI, pigeons, vandals, etc., and encryption and spread-spectrum make it a lot easier to avoid problems from frustrated cops.

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Re: Native American Encryption?!
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>If nothing else, adding encryption on top of the Navajo >language makes known-plaintext much more difficult. Navajo has no written language.

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Re: Spread-spectrum net (vulnerability of)
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jkreznar(a)ininx.com (John E. Kreznar) said: >Are you taking into account that as the power is dropped, coherent >communication can compensate by dropping the data rate Very low power transmitters are actually legitimate, at least in some bands, so you don't have to drop the signal to the point where it'd merge seamlessly with ambient noise. However I doubt that extremely low power transmitters will accomplish what is desired. I also wonder whether extremely low data rates are desired. >> There are other approaches...phase-sweeping...phase-conjugation... >Do you have a reference for these? Neither appears in the index of any of the >books in my spread-spectrum library. Maybe they're not spread-spectrum? Different topic. Try "phase conjugate mirrors" in optical and physics journals. I'm not positive that this would be good enough to help avoid detection. Doug

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Re: Breaking DES
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>When I use a hash table, it is never a substitute for storing the >actual value of the thing I'm hashing. Its always just a way of >rapidly FINDING the underlying object. I have to store the underlying >object in order to compare to it. As an example, in a hashed symbol >table, I store the actual symbols. Instead of storing the underlying value, I am assuming that it is *thrown away*, and recalculated whenever there is a collision. This cuts down on the expense of this disk drives, at the cost of increasing runtime by roughly a factor of 7 (log_base_256(2^56)). I didn't include that cost in my previous estimates because I was doing a very rough back of the envelope calculation, but I accept that it should be included. >> Impractical? Your response to Karl implied that it was *impossible*. > >The two are very similar in our field. Cracking RSA with a 2000 bit >key is merely impractical, not impossible, where "impractical" is >defined as completely beyond human ability. It's a question of where you draw the line. A budget of one hundred billion dollars and a runtime of say a year, I'm willing to call "impractical". A budget of 10 trillion dollars and a runtime of 100 years, I'd be willing to call "impossible". The 2000 bit key is over everyone's threshold. Doug

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Re: Native American Encryption?!
by lefty＠apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I remember hearing many years ago that one of the branches of the armed >aervices during WWII used a native American -- Cherokee? Apache? -- >language to communicate. The Japanese (the story goes) went nuts trying to >crack the code -- unsuccessfully. It was Navajo. > Two questions: > 1) Can anyone give me a reference for this story (assuming it's true)? There was a recent (i.e. within the past year) article in Smithsonian magazine on the "code talkers". I believe only one or two of them are still surviving. This sort of thing doesn't constitute what would properly be called a cipher; it's either a code, or perhaps a species of steganography. -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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Native American Encryption
by A little like having bees live in your head. 13-Oct-1993 1306 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>If nothing else, adding encryption on top of the Navajo >>language makes known-plaintext much more difficult. > >Navajo has no written language. Not so. There has been a written form for Navajo for the last few decades (at least). It uses the Roman alphabet but the mapping of sound-to-character is not the same as for English. Vowels aren't even a, e, i, o, and u, which certainly doesn't help speakers of English trying to form syllables. To my eye, it more closely resembles modem noise on an ASCII terminal than anything else, but it does exist. (no, I can't read it) Navajo code talkers spoke with Navajo words, but not with Navajo meanings. Parts of speech that should be nouns became adjectives, etc. Navajo Elders who heard the code talkers commented "It sounds like Navaho, but it doesn't make any _sense_!". -Ya-ha'-tey! Bill Yerazunis

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Dangers of skipping too many messages
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Folks, part of the list volume problem is apparently that a lot of us are skipping a lot of the messages. Sounds paradoxical, but hear me out. Someone asked about the Indian code talkers used in World War II, and suggested they might be Apache or Cherokee. Well, to date, about half a dozen responses have all pointed out they were the famous Navajo code talkers. Nice to see such knowledge. But the responses seem to indicate no awareness that several others have already answered the question. And this is not a "response cluster" phenomenon, as the answers have been straggling in for a few days. (However, it may be that some folks are way behind in their reading and fired off an answer when they read the first question.) I don't have an answer to either of these problems (people skipping messages, people behind in reading), but both appear to be symptomatic of an overloaded list. Eric H. tells me we're well over 500 subscribers now. Gulp! --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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