December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

ANNOUNCEMENT: January cypherpunks meeting is non-standard
by hughes＠ah.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ANNOUNCEMENT ============ The January 1994 Bar Area cypherpunks meeting will not be the second Saturday of the month, but rather the third. Usenix is in San Francisco the following week, and it was decided at our last meeting to make it easier for some Usenix folk to attend. We also decided to give each meeting a theme in order to better focus discussion. When: Saturday, January 15, 1994 12:00 noon - 6:00 p.m. Where: Cygnus Support offices, Mt. View, CA Theme: Software Infrastructure for Cryptography The lack of a unified software architecture is a major obstacle to widespread deployment of cryptography. Existing approaches have been primarily for specific purposes or applications. We'll talk about infrastructure issues, technical, social, and political. We'll review existing work at the system level (cfs, swipe) and at the application level (pgp, pem). If you have a specific presentation, please send me some email (hughes(a)ah.com) and I'll schedule you in. [Directions to Cygnus provided by John Gilmore. -- EH] Cygnus Support 1937 Landings Drive Mt. View, CA 94043 +1 415 903 1400 switchboard +1 415 903 1418 John Gilmore Take US 101 toward Mt. View. From San Francisco, it's about a 40-minute drive. Get off at the Rengstorff Ave/Amphitheatre Parkway exit. If you were heading south on 101, you curve around to the right, cross over the freeway, and get to a stoplight. If you were heading north on 101, you just come right off the exit to the stoplight. The light is the intersection of Amphitheatre and Charleston Rd. Take a right on Charleston; there's a right-turn-only lane. Follow Charleston for a short distance. You'll pass the Metaphor/Kaleida buildings on the right. At a clump of palm trees and a "Landmark Deli" sign, take a right into Landings Drive. At the end of the road, turn left into the complex with the big concrete "Landmark" sign. Follow the road past the deli til you are in front of the clock tower that rises out of one of the buildings, facing you. Enter through the doors immediately under the clock tower. They'll be open between noon and 1PM at least. (See below if you're late.) Once inside, take the stairs up, immediately to your right. At the top of the stairs, turn right past the treetops, and we'll be in 1937 on your left. The door is marked "Cygnus". If you are late and the door under the clock tower is locked, you can walk to the deli (which will be around the building on your left, as you face the door). Go through the gate in the fence to the right of the deli, and into the back lawns between the complex and the farm behind it. Walk forward and right around the buildings until you see a satellite dish in the lawn. Go up the stairs next to the dish, which are the back stairs into the Cygnus office space. We'll prop the door (or you can bang on it if we forget). Or, you can find the guard who's wandering around the complex, who knows there's a meeting happening and will let you in. They can be beeped at 965 5250, though you'll have trouble finding a phone. Don't forget to eat first, or bring food at noon! I recommend hitting the burrito place on Rengstorff (La Costen~a) at about 11:45. To get there, when you get off 101, take Rengstorff (toward the hills) rather than Amphitheatre (toward the bay). Follow it about ten blocks until the major intersection at Middlefield Road. La Costen~a is the store on your left at the corner. You can turn left into the narrow lane behind the store, which leads to a parking lot, and enter by the front door, which faces the intersection. To get to the meeting from there, just retrace your route on Rengstorff, go straight over the freeway, and turn right at the stoplight onto Charleston; see above. See you there! John Gilmore

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Slack area behind files
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I use Stacker for disk compression on my PC, and this problem of un-erased data is potentially worse with that software. Probably Microsoft's DoubleSpace suffers from the same problem. If you erase a file on a compressed partition using some of these suggestions, such as writing a pattern followed by its complement, you won't erase the whole file. That is because a repeated pattern is far more compressible than the original file contents, in most cases. A 4K byte text file may compress down to 2K on the disk, but 4K worth of repetitions of 0xff will compress down to just a few bytes! The majority of your file will not be touched at all. Norton has a "wipefile" program which overwrites files according to a government standard, but I believe it just writes constant values repeatedly. This will overwrite only the start of the file, many times. Bruce Schneier recommends including one or more passes of writing pseudorandom data to the file. Since this data is not compressible it should overwrite the whole file. The data doesn't have to be cryptographically random, just something that won't be compressed by straightforward algorithms. Hal

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Re: Humor!
by freeman＠MasPar.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

And for some of us that should be: __________________ __________________ ---- | | |-\_ _/-| | | ---- ----- | | | |_\ \ O / /_| | | | ----- ---- | |_| | | | |_| | ---- ^^oo^^^^^^^^^oo^^^ o^^o^ _/ \_ ^o^^o ^^^oo^^^^^^^^^oo^^ -- -- Me!! Confusion say: Man who stands in middle of road gets hit by trucks going both ways... -- Jay Freeman

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(fwd) 38 Hours in Hamburg: A visit to the 10th Chaos Communications Congress
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks (and Extropians, too), (If you respond, only reply to the group you are a member of...cross-posting between mailing lists gets to be confusing.) Here's an interesting snapshot report on the 10th Chaos Communications Congress, a Cypherpunkish European group of some repute. (Actually, they obviously predate us, but their new interest in digital cash and crypto parallels our own.) --Tim May From: farber(a)linc.cis.upenn.edu (David Farber) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: 38 Hours in Hamburg: A visit to the 10th Chaos Communications Congress Message-ID: <2gccse$20j(a)netnews.upenn.edu> Date: 4 Jan 94 18:34:54 GMT Lines: 469 Date: Tue, 4 Jan 94 18:52:54 +0100 Subject: 38 Hours in Hamburg From: efarber(a)iiic.ethz.ch (Manny E. Farber) 38 Hours in Hamburg: A visit to the 10th Chaos Communications Congress by Manny E. Farber Armed only with an invitation in English addressed to the "global community" and a small pile of German Marks, I arrived at the Eidelstedter Buergerhaus about an hour or so before the beginning of the 10th Chaos Communication Congress (subtitled "Ten years after Orwell"), sponsored by the (in)famous Chaos Computer Club. The Buergerhaus (literally, "citizen's house") turned out to be a modest community hall; needless to say, not all invited showed up. The Congress took place between the 27th and the 29th of December. As the title implies, social as well as technical issues were on the docket. After forking over 30 DM (about $20) for a pass for the first two days of the Congress, I sort of felt like asking for a schedule, but refrained, thinking that asking for scheduled chaos might seem a bit odd. I went to the cafeteria for breakfast. An organizer started out announcing, "Anyone who wants to eat breakfast pays 5 Marks, and gets a stamp, which--no, rather, anyone who wants breakfast pays 5 Marks and eats breakfast." The atmosphere was quite collegial and informal, with little more order than was absolutely necessary. The approximately 150 attendees were predominantly German (a few from Switzerland and Holland, at least -- and probably only -- one from the United States, namely myself), male, and technically oriented. (During an explanation of the mathematical algorithm underlying electronic cash, a non-techie objected, "But I don't want to have to think up a 200-digit random number every time I buy something!" It was explained to him that this was done by software in the chip-card ...). Although not mentioned in the invitation, not a word of English was to be heard; all the events were conducted in German. Some were conducted in a "talk show" format, with a host asking questions, simplifying answers, making jokes. A television network carried the video from the auditorium to other rooms throughout the building (albeit without sound) along with up-to-the-minute event schedules. The tone of the discussions of how electronic cash could be embezzled, or chip cards abused, digital signatures forged, etc., was constructive rather than destructive. And it was balanced, i.e. not only "how could a malicious individual embezzle money?" was discussed, but also "how could the government use chip cards to reduce people's privacy?" Here, the "hackers" were hackers in the positive sense of understanding a technology, not in the negative sense of wreaking havoc. It was, however, noted that trying out a potential weakness of the "EuroScheck" cash cards was quite easy: it would require buying a card reader for 1,500 DM and maybe a week of time. The question of technical solutions to "big brother" did come up in the presentations about chip cards. The danger is that a pile of cards is eliminated in favor of a card containing someone's driver's license, driving record (maybe), employee information, credit information, etc. etc. A chip card could theoretically be programmed to give out *only* the information absolutely necessary, e.g. telling a policeman only that someone is allowed to drive, without disclosing his identity. The "Hackzentrum" (Hacking Center) turned out to be a room filled with networked computers and people hacking on them. It seemed mostly harmless. (I nevertheless did not try a remote login -- I had no reason to doubt good intentions, but on the other hand, who knows who wrote or replaced the keyboard driver and what sort of supplemental functionality it might have?) The packet radio room had a "Digi" repeating station and, true to the ham radio tradition, where the conversation centers on who is talking to whom and how well they hear each other and on what other frequency they might hear each other better, the computers attached were mostly displaying maps of the packet radio network itself. I didn't delve very deeply into the "Chaos Archive," but noticed a collection of maintenance sheets for telephone equipment among CCC newsletters and other paraphenalia. Some "signs of the Congress": - Bumper sticker: "I (heart) your computer" - Telephone stickers: "Achtung, Abhoergefahr" ("Attention, Eavesdropping danger"; and the German PTT logo transformed into a pirate insignia, with the words "Telefun - Mobilpunk" (derived from "Telefon - Mobilfunk") - T-shirt: "Watching them (eye-ball) watching us" - Post-It Note pad (for sale for DM 1.50): a pad of about 50, pre-printed with a hand-written note: "Vorsicht, Stoerung. Automat macht Karte ungueltig" ("Careful--Defect. Machine makes card invalid") - Word coinage: "Gopher-space" - Stamp: "ORIGINALE KOPIE" ("ORIGINAL COPY") The press were told not to take pictures of anyone without their explicit permission. Schedules were distributed throughout the Congress. By the evening of the 27th, a schedule for the 28th, "Fahrplan 28.12 Version 2.0," was already available ("Fahrplan" means a bus/train schedule; this is presumably an "in" joke). By 17:30 on the 28th, "Fahrplan 28.12 Version 2.7" was being distributed. (I missed most of the intervening versions; presumably they were neatly filed away in the Chaos Archive by then ...) The scheduled events (in translation) were as follows; a "*" means that I have included some comments later in this report: December 27, 1993 - Welcoming/opening - How does a computer work? - ISDN: Everything over one network - Internet and multimedia applications: MIME/Mosaik/Gopher - Data transport for beginners - Chip-cards: Technology * Media and information structures: How much truth remains? Direct democracy: information needs of the citizen - Encryption for beginners, the practical application of PGP * Alternative networks: ZAMIRNET, APS+Hacktic, Green-Net, Knoopunt, Z-Netz and CL December 28, 1993 - Encryption: Principles, Systems, and Visions - Modacom "wireless modem" - Electronic Cash - Bulletin board protocols: Functional comparison and social form, with the example of citizen participation - Discussion with journalist Eva Weber - Net groups for students, Jan Ulbrich, DFN * What's left after the eavesdropping attack? Forbidding encryption? Panel: Mitglied des Bundestags (Member of Parliament) Peter Paterna, Datenschutz Beauftragter Hamburg (Data privacy official) Peter Schar, a journalist from Die Zeit, a representative from the German PTT, a student writing a book about related issues, and a few members of the Chaos Computer Club - Cyber Bla: Info-cram * How does an intelligence service work? Training videos from the "Stasi" Ministrium fuer STAatsSIcherheit (Ministry for National Security) - System theory and Info-policies with Thomas Barth - Science Fiction video session: Krieg der Eispiraten ("War of the ice pirates") December 29, 1993 - Thoughts about orgination ("Urheben") - Computer recycling - Dumbness in the nets: Electronic warfare - Lockpicking: About opening locks - The Arbeitsgemeinschaft freier Mailboxen introduces itself - In year 10 after Orwell ... Visions of the hacker scene ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE EAVESDROPPING ATTACK This has to do with a proposed law making its way through the German Parliament. The invitation describes this as "a proposed law reform allowing state authorities to listen in, even in private rooms, in order to fight organized crime." This session was the centerpiece of the Congress. Bayerische Rundfunk, the Bavarian sender, sent a reporter (or at least a big microphone with their logo on it). The panel consisted of: MdB - Mitglied des Bundestags (Member of Parliament) Peter Paterna DsB - Datenschutz Beauftragter Hamburg (Data privacy official) Peter Schar Journalist - from Die Zeit PTT - a representative from the German PTT Student - writing a book about related issues CCC - a few members of the Chaos Computer Club My notes are significantly less than a word-for-word transcript. In the following, I have not only excerpted and translated, but reorganized comments to make the threads easier to follow. IS IT JUSTIFIED? MdB - There is massive concern ("Beunruhigung") in Germany: 7 million crimes last year. Using the US as comparison for effectivity of eavesdropping, it's only applicable in about 10-20 cases: this has nothing to do with the 7 million. The congress is nevertheless reacting to the 7 million, not to the specifics. In principle, I am opposed and have concerns about opening a Pandora's box. CCC #1 - The 7 million crimes does not surprise me in the least. I am convinced that there is a clear relationship between the number of laws and the number of crimes. When you make more laws, you have more crimes. Every second action in this country is illegal. Journalist - Laws/crimes correlation is an over-simplification. There are more murders, even though there are no more laws against it. MdB - There is a conflict between internal security, protecting the constitution, and civil rights. How dangerous is 6 billion Marks of washed drug money to the nation? Taking the US as an example, the corrosion may have gone so far that it's too late to undo it. I hope that this point hasn't been reached yet in Germany. DsB - I am worried about a slippery slope. There is a tradeoff between freedom and security, and this is the wrong place to make it; other more effective measures aren't being taken up. EFFECTIVENESS OF CONTROLS ON EAVESDROPPING MdB - Supposedly federal controls are effective. Although there are very few eavesdropping cases, even if you look at those that are court-approved, it's increasing exponentially. No proper brakes are built into the system. As for controls for eavesdropping by the intelligence service, there is a committee of three members of parliament, to whom all cases must be presented. They have final say, and I know one of the three, and have relatively much trust in him. They are also allowed to go into any PTT facility anytime, unannounced, to see whether or not something is being tapped or not. MdB - Policies for eavesdropping: if no trace of an applicable conversation is heard within the first "n" minutes, they must terminate the eavesdropping [...] The question is, at which point the most effective brakes and regulations should be applied: in the constitution? in the practice? PTT - True, but often the actual words spoken is not important, rather who spoke with whom, and when. DsB - There is no catalog for crimes, saying what measures can be applied in investigating which crimes. It's quite possible to use them for simple crimes, e.g. speeding. There is no law saying that the PTT *has to* store data; they *may*. They can choose technical and organizational solutions that don't require it. MdB - This is a valid point, I don't waive responsibility for such details. The PTT could be required to wipe out detailed information as soon as it is no longer needed, e.g. after the customer has been billed for a call. TECHNICAL TRENDS Journalist - Digital network techniques make it easy to keep trails, and there is an electronic trail produced as waste product, which can be used for billing as well as for other purposes. Load measurements are allowable, but it can also be used for tracking movements. DsB - The PTT claims they need detailed network data to better plan the network. The government says they need details in order to be able to govern us better. DsB - In the past, the trend has always been to increasingly identificable phone cards. There is economic pressure on the customer to use a billing card instead of a cash card, since a telephone unit costs less. With "picocells," your movement profile is getting more and more visible. PTT - As for the trend towards less-anonymous billing-cards: with the new ISDN networks, this is necessary. Billing is a major cost, and this is just a technical priority. Student - As for techniques to reduce potential for eavesdropping, it is for example technically possible to address a mobile phone without the network operator needing to know its position. Why aren't such things being pursued? PTT - UMTS is quite preliminary and not necessarily economically feasible. [Comments about debit cards]. We have more interest in customer trust than anything else. But when something is according to the law, we have no option other than to carry it out. But we don't do it gladly. THE BIG CONSPIRACY? CCC #2 - I don't give a shit about these phone conversations being overheard. I want to know why there is such a big controversy. Who wants what? Why is this so important? Why so much effort? Why are so many Mafia films being shown on TV when the eavesdropping law is being discussed? What's up? Why, and who are the people? Student - I am writing a book about this, and I haven't figured this out myself. My best theory: there are some politicians who have lost their detailed outlook ("Feinbild"), and they should be done away with ("abgeschaffen"). PTT - We're in a difficult position, with immense investments needed to be able to overhear phone conversations [in digital networks (?)]. We have no interest in a cover-up. MdB - As for the earlier question about what NATO countries may do. During the occupation of Berlin, they did want they wanted on the networks. In western Germany, it has always been debated. Funny business has never been proved, nor has suspicion been cleared up. CCC #2 - After further thought, I have another theory. American companies are interested in spying on German companies in order to get a jump on their product offerings. MdB - That's clear, but there are more benign explanations. Government offices tend towards creating work. Individuals are promoted if their offices expand, and they look for new fields to be busy in. In Bonn, we've gone from 4,000 people to 24,000 since the 50's. CCC #1 (to MdB) - Honestly, I don't see why you people in Bonn are anything other than one of these impenetrable bureaucracies like you described, inaccessible, out of touch with reality, and interested only in justifying their own existence. MdB - Well, *my* federal government isn't that. CLIPPER CHIP CONTROVERSY Student - Observation/concern: in the US, AT&T's encryption system is cheap and weak. If this becomes a de facto standard, it is much harder to introduce a better one later. Journalist - In the US, the Clipper chip controversy has centered more on the lost business opportunities for encryption technology, not on principles. There every suggestion for forbidding encryption has encountered stiff opposition. Student - As for the Clipper algorithm, it's quite easy to invite three experts to cursorily examine an algorithm (they weren't allowed to take documents home to study it) and then sign-off that they have no complaints. Journalist - As for the cursory rubber-stamping by the three experts who certified the Clipper algorithm, my information is that they had multiple days of computing days on a supercomputer available. I don't see a problem with the algorithm. The problem lies in the "trust centers" that manage the keys. I personally don't see why the whole question of cryptology is at all open ("zugaenglich") for the government. CONCLUDING REMARKS DsB - The question is not only whether or not politicans are separated from what the citizens want, but also of what the citizens want. Germans have a tendency to valuing security. Different tradition in the US, and less eavesdropping. I can imagine how the basic law ("Grundgesetz") could be eliminated in favor of regulations designed to reduce eavesdropping, the trade-off you (MdB) mentioned earlier. The headlines would look like "fewer cases of eavesdropping", "checks built in to the system," etc., everyone would be happy, and then once the law has been abolished, it would creep back up, and then there's no limit. MdB - (Nods agreement) CCC #2 - There are things that must be administered centrally (like the PTT), and the government is the natural choice, but I suggest that we don't speak of the "government," but rather of "coordination." This reduces the perceived "required power" aspect ... As a closing remark, I would like to suggest that we take a broader perspective, assume that a person may commit e.g. 5,000 DM more of theft in his lifetime, live with that, and save e.g. 100,000 DM in taxes trying to prevent this degree of theft. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MEDIA AND INFORMATION STRUCTURES In this session, a lot of time was wasted in pointless philosophical discussion of what is meant by Truth, although once this topic was forcefully ignored, some interesting points came up (I don't necessarily agree or disagree with these): - In electronic media, the receiver has more responsibility for judging truth placed on his shoulders. He can no longer assume that the sender is accountable. With "Network Trust," you would know someone who knows what's worthwhile, rather than filtering the deluge yourself. A primitive form of this already exists in the form of Usenet "kill" files. - A large portion of Usenet blather is due to people who just got their accounts cross-posting to the entire world. The actual posting is not the problem, rather that others follow it up with a few dozen messages debating whether or not it's really mis-posted, or argue that they should stop discussing it, etc. People are beginning to learn however, and the ripple effect is diminishing. - Companies such as Microsoft are afraid of the Internet, because its distributed form of software development means they are no longer the only ones able to marshal 100 or 1,000 people for a windowing system like X-Windows or Microsoft Windows. - If someone is trying to be nasty and knows what he's doing, a Usenet posting can be made to cost $500,000 in network bandwidth, disk space, etc. - At a Dutch university, about 50% of the network bandwidth could have been saved if copies of Playboy were placed in the terminal rooms. Such technical refinements as Gopher caching daemons pale in comparison. - All e-mail into or out of China goes through one node. Suspicious, isn't it? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALTERNATIVE NETWORKS Several people reported about computer networks they set up and are operating. A sampling: APS+Hacktic - Rop Gonggrijp reported about networking services for the masses, namely Unix and Internet for about $15 per month, in Holland. There are currently 1,000 subscribers, and the funding is sufficient to break even and to expand to keep up with exponential demand. A German reported about efforts to provide e-mail to regions of ex-Yugoslavia that are severed from one another, either due to destroyed telephone lines or to phone lines being shut off by the government. A foundation provided them with the funds to use London (later Vienna), which is reachable from both regions, as a common node. The original author of the Zerberus mail system used on many private German networks complained about the degree of meta-discussion and how his program was being used for people to complain about who is paying what for networking services and so forth. He said he did not create it for such non-substantial blather. The difference between now and several years ago is that now there are networks that work, technically, and the problem is how to use them in a worthwhile manner. A German of Turkish origin is trying to allow Turks in Turkey to participate in relevant discussions going on on German networks (in German) and is providing translating services (if I heard right, some of this was being done in Sweden). This killed the rest of the session, which degenerated into a discussion of which languages were/are/should be used on which networks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW AN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE WORKS: STASI TRAINING VIDEOS The person introducing the videos sat on the stage, the room darkened. The camera blotted out his upper body and face; all that was to see on the video, projected behind him, was a pair of hands moving around. It apparently didn't take much to earn a file in the Stasi archives. And once you were in there, the "10 W's: Wo/wann/warum/mit wem/..." ("where/when/why/with whom/...") ensured that the file, as well as those of your acquaintances, grew. The videos reported the following "case studies": - The tale of "Eva," whose materialistic lifestyle, contacts with Western capitalists, and "Abenteuerromantik" tendencies made her a clear danger to the state, as well as a valuable operative. She swore allegiance to the Stasi and was recruited. Eventually the good working relationship deteriorated, and the Stasi had to prevent her from trying to escape to the West. The video showed how the different parts of the intelligence service worked together. - A member of the military made a call to the consulate of West Germany in Hungary. The list of 10,000 possible travellers to Hungary in the relevant time frame was narrowed down to 6,000 on the basis of a determination of age and accent from the recorded conversation, then down to 80 by who would have any secrets to sell, then down to three (by hunch? I don't remember now). One video showed how a subversive was discreetly arrested. Cameras throughout the city were used to track his movements. When he arrived at his home, a few workers were "fixing" the door, which they claimed couldn't be opened at the moment. They walked him over to the next building to show him the entrance, and arrested him there. A dinky little East German car comes up, six people pile into it. Two uniformed police stand on the sidewalk pretending nothing is happening. David Farber; Prof. of CIS and EE, U of Penn, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6389 Join EFF! For information about membership, send mail to eff(a)eff.org.

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info on CRVAX articles
by an31888＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please send information on obtaining articles listed in recent posting. Cannot locate them on crvax.sri.com in \RISKS. Any help appreciated. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: GPS and security
by jdwilson＠gold.chem.hawaii.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > > > Re GPS & weapons delivery - > > > > With nuclear weapons you don't have to be all that accurate, +/- 50 miles > > still gets the job done ;-) > > > > -Jim > > > > I assume you're just joking. > Definately kidding! But the info below is appreciated. > If not, read up on how critical the targeting is for even moderately Aloha! -Jim

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New Yorker article on Bill Gates
by Jonathan Corbet 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The January 10 issue of the New Yorker has an amusing article about the author's email communications with Bill Gates. Perhaps most interesting, from the point of view of this list, is the quote from one of Gates's messages: I am the only person who reads my email so no one has to worry about embarrassing themselves or going around people when they send a message. Our email is completely secure... Neither Gates nor the New Yorker author (John Seabrook) seems aware that messages from 73124.1524(a)compuserve.com to billg(a)microsoft.com travel in plaintext over the Internet. Either that or they aren't admitting to their use of encryption...:-) Seabrook's article is about, as much as anything, a newbie discovering the pleasures of email, so he can be forgiven for not questioning the above statement. Gates should know better. Even if security within microsoft.com is absolute, which seems unlikely to me. Actually, the whole article shows a sort of awe of "Bill" that, from my unix-oriented perspective, I really can not share. But it's an interesting read anyway. The New Yorker is showing a surprising willingness to delve into interesting parts of our culture these days. Jonathan Corbet National Center for Atmospheric Research, Atmospheric Technology Division corbet(a)stout.atd.ucar.edu

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Re: INFORMED CONSENT
by nobody＠rosebud.ee.uh.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy Sandfort <ssandfort(a)attmail.com> writes: S> Nobody wrote: S> S> You know, this radiation experiment reminds me of S> another incident. A group of African-American men were S> injected, without their knowledge or consent, with live S> syphilis spirochaetes, and studied for a number of S> years. No attempt at therapy was ever attempted, as I S> recall, for these individuals. . . . S> S> Actually, this is wrong on two counts. One, the men were not S> injected with syphilis; they had already contracted it when S they went into the program. Correct. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. S> Two, in most cases, they *were* given S> therapy. What was withheld was penicillin. The subjects who S> were treated, were given relatively ineffective and dangerous S> mercury therapies. >From what I've been able to glean from the below reference, at the very beginning of the study, in 1932, the subjects were given rather innefective treatment. From about 1933 on the focus of the study became purely one of longterm _untreated_ syphilis. Indeed, during United States Public Health Service campaigns against V.D. in the South, during the late '30s and into the '40s when more effective therapies were coming into use, subjects of the study were actively *denied* treatment; to the point of actually pulling them out line at clinics (those who sought treatment), telling them that they weren't supposed to be treated, and sending them home. This "study" was conducted under the auspices of the United States Public Health Service, was not a secret, and ran for 40 years. --Nobody ================================================================== Author: Jones, James H. (James Howard), 1943- Title: Bad blood : the Tuskegee syphilis experiment Impr/Ed: New York : Free Press ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada; New York : Maxwell McMillan International, c1993 : LCCN: 92034818

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Re: Cypherpunk Credit Union
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

LD asks about the status of digicash credit unions and such. > 1. Do you have to join the CA cypherpunks to learn about this? > Obviously you guys have been working on this a long time, and as > long as I was on the list I barely saw any peep about it. Several different projects are going on. The credit-union approach is from some folks in the Austin cypherpunks group whose names I've forgotten, who posted a rather funny article to the net a few months back about their drive to Dallas to meet Chaum; I think it was on both sci.crypt and cypherpunks. The other project I know about is the one Eric Hughes and friends are working on. Anything having to do with banking law tends to take an immense learning-curve hit just to do the legalities - they're often harder than the technical work, given the availability of Chaum and other people's work in the academic community. As with most projects, people spend a while kicking around what they'd like a system to do, and developing technology to do it (often in parallel, and sometimes science-fiction writers tell us what a system *ought* to be doing for us long before anybody figures out the details of how to do it or what the real implications of technology are), but sitting down and actually implementing something is often a lot of work - especially if you're doing stuff like writing business plans and hunting down venture capitalists, which may not go on as publicly. Unfortunately, certain flame-wars have made it difficult for people to do real work on cypherpunks (ahem!), and have forced people to adjust the priorities of what they read and think about and how much time they spend doing or talking about new fun stuff. (Flames to /dev/null :-)) This means that sometimes the only way to find out what people are doing is to meet them in person, or send private email saying "what are you up to these days?" One of the valuable parts of CA-cypherpunks has been everybody going around the room saying "here's what I've been playing with lately." > 2. Is this a private development group? Is it open to anyone who > wishes to join? If so, are cy{b,ph}erwonks allowed to join in the > development? We are interested in these kinds of projects. Don't know; you can ask the people doing the work by email, and maybe they'll think it's worth their time to bring you up to date and ask for your help if you've got usefl contributions. Or you can go out and start one yourself, and ask for help; lots of the important projects get the bulk of their work done by 1 or a few people working hard. > 3. [other mailing lists?] Nobody's invited me :-), except there's the IMP lists, which I haven't taken the time for yet. > 4. If any of your projects are indeed secret, why are many > cypherpunks actively engaged in a campaign on the imp-interest > list (Internet Mercantile Protocols)? Why don't you just stick to > your own project and let the Internet sort out which protocol is > more acceptable to the world-at-large? There are dozens of different flavors of applications for moving money, goods, and services around the Internet, with different needs, different economic characteristics, etc. Most of them need some form of crypto to be usable, whether to prevent forgery or counterfeiting, preserve privacy, guarantee you'll get paid, deliver the goods and cash at the same time, etc. That means that cypherpunks, sci.crypt readers, and people like us who may or may not have time to follow the lists :-) are generally the experts on this sort of technology among internet-users, except for corporate efforts which may be going on in proprietary-space. An IMP needs to accommodate a wide range of needs, and needs to avoid re-making mistakes that cypherpunks have already learned to avoid. While I certainly am concerned about keeping information about where I'm travelled and when private, both I and the subway providers are willing to risk using little mag-cards bought for cash with the $5-20 they hold; on the other hand, I'd really rather not file my income tax return on postcards or satellite broadcast-grams with payment attached via my credit-card numbers, SSN, mother's maiden name, and digitized-ink signature. You may have other preferences :-) > 5. What about the rumors that seem to be confirmed by what > B.Stewart said about evading tax laws and black marketeering, > that the cypherpunk credit union is actually a surreptitious > front for plans to provide money laundering over the Internet? That's a political question for another thread, and most of what I said was political discussion, it wasn't market surveys of customers. FOllowups to cypherwonks, please. Any sufficiently advanced technology... > 7. What is the David Chaum connection to all this? I know that he > met with E.Hughes to discuss plans but are the Cypherpunks to be > understood as the U.S.-based Chaum group? Chaum and the folks at C.W.I. and Chaum's company have developed a lot of the interesting technology, or at least patented it in the U.S., so you *have* to deal with them if you want to go into business. That doesn't mean you become a subsidiary, just a customer. Meanwhile, the meeting you're referring to was between Chaum and the Austin folks, as I and others have mentioned. Bill Stewart # Bill Stewart NCR Corp, 6870 Koll Center Parkway, Pleasanton CA, 94566 # Voice/Beeper 510-224-7043, Phone 510-484-6204 # email bill.stewart(a)pleasantonca.ncr.com billstewart(a)attmail.com

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REQUEST: PGP Lib status
by pckizer＠tamu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- A while back, whenever someone talked about perhaps working on libraritizing PGP themselves, the reply would be "someone's working on it," or "it will be in the next release." Anyone have the current status of this? Thanks, philip ____________________________________________________________ Philip Kizer ___ Texas A&M CIS Operating Systems Group, Unix fnord pckizer(a)tamu.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLSrSCbZspOMRmJBhAQFcsQP+JGGrou0fBnfYVOnD1PA9Zkxyq7uGNW7T nuaNgAdj7CIb8HU7oykCond9d5HC7KmZXsQRz4pEtzPWBl5fLvTe33cgfAtRtPxk PBsrDuriB6FwK6i/OdB7ac0NxIdCGCWRwrpjCWb5DfFzQN+/fmV86gHBt++t+6qz gkXI5xaftOQ= =WKcl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RSA Conference 1/12-1/14
by Hastings＠courier8.aero.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Here's a recent e-mail exchange, between RSA Data Security, Inc. <info(a)rsa.com> and myself, that may interest you cypherpunks: - ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Crypto FAQ Request Author: Hastings(a)courier8.aero.org at INTERNET Date: 1/4/94 10:31 AM My deadline for the first issue of the Agorist Quarterly is rapidly approaching. I'm writing an article about digital cash protocols for use on Internet e-mail accounts, comparing Chaum's recent work with Representative/Observer hardware versus software-only approaches like Netcash and rumors about better things from the cypherpunk list. Of course, RSA will get mentioned as one of the foundations of digital cash, along with Chaum's blind signatures, mixes, remailers, DC-nets, and etc. Your latest cryptography FAQ that I've seen is Revision 2, dated October 5, 1993. Is that the latest version? If so, I'm all set. If not, please e-mail the latest version to me here at hastings(a)courier8.aero.org. If it is only available on paper, please send a copy to me at this address: The Agorist Institute 291 S. La Cienega Blvd #749 Beverly Hills, CA 90211 If your company has any products specifically targeting paperless checks, cash, or related applications, let me know and I'll include them in the article. Thanks for your help. Kent - <hastings(a)courier8.aero.org> Ham packet radio: WA6ZFY @ N6YN.#SOCA.CA.USA.NA ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Kent: Yes, release 2 is the latest release of the FAQ. David Chaum is going to be speaking at our conference next week, and will be available for interviews. Since you're press, you get in free: will you be coming? Finally, what is the Agorist Institute? Kurt Stammberger RSADSI ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ The Agorist Institute is a non-profit educational institute that is best characterized as a libertarian think tank. It was established "on the last day of 1984 to mark the end of Orwell's nightmare future." Seminars on agorist subjects, like Austrian Economics, and Feminism And The State, have been held in Southern California. The Institute's Directorate maintains a semi-monthly presence at the Albert J. Nock Forum, and at the H.L. Mencken Supper Club, to distribute publications, and serve as speakers when appropriate. For example, I gave a speech about digital cash, "Cyber Cash: Free-Market Money Comes of Age," to three different groups at the end of September, 1993. The speech was first delivered to a World Future Society chapter in Santa Ana, the H.L. Mencken Forum in Hollywood, and to a Libertarian Party chapter in Culver City. Note: The Agorist Institute does not endorse candidates for any political party. We serve the vast libertarian movement outside the small numbers of L.P. activists. The Director presented a libertarian analysis of our current business environment at a 1993 conference held in Midlands, Michigan. The conference was called "Freedom, Trade, and Markets in a High-Tech Age." He has been invited back, to give seminars this March, 1994, along with other Institute researchers, on topics ranging from electronic publishing, to How To Sell Freedom to a Hostile Audience. Unlike the Cato Institute, which provides libertarian policy advice to Washington D.C. politicians and lobbyists, the AI's research mainly covers the gray market and black market areas we call "counter-economics." This is also the focus of other institutes, like the one associated with Peruvian writer Hernando de Soto, famous for his book, The Other Path, which documented the growth and present influence of the "informal economy" in Peru. The informal economy grew steadily in the big cities of Peru, from nothing, to controlling over 90% of what are normally considered "public" services (like bus transportation, and road construction and maintenance), all despite a succession of formal left-wing and right-wing governments. So you can see why the development of untraceable digital cash for any e-mail user would interest us. With 20 million Internet accounts throughout the world, and Internet usage doubling every year, digicash will have a profound impact on businesses, government, and consumers. The Institute studies, but does not encourage, activities that are illegal. Still, if it weren't for gun smugglers, tax cheats, and traitors, the United States would still be a British colony, and Eastern Europe would still be Communist. It is unlikely that I will be able to travel to Northern Cal. next week, (I have a real job, too!), but if you send me the date and time, I could arrange for a local person to attend the Chaum conference. I could announce it at tonight's Albert J. Nock Forum meeting, if you want me to. You might give me prices for the non-press attendees in that case. Thanks again for your prompt reply. Kent - <hastings(a)courier8.aero.org> Ham packet radio: WA6ZFY @ N6YN.#SOCA.CA.USA.NA ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Send me your fax number and I will fax you a complete comnference agenda: David's talk is on the third day. Non-press attendees are $245 each (just a break-even fee: we feed you breakfast and lunch all three days, and proceedings and hardcopies of the presentations, a various other goodies) Kurt RSADSI 415/595-8782 - -------------------------------------------------------- I suppose you could call Kurt, and tell him I sent you. The conference begins on Wednesday, January 12, 1994. Registration is at 415/595-8782. The conference is at the Hotel Sofitel January 12-14, 1994 in Redwood Shores, CA about 15 minutes south of the San Francisco International Airport. Rooms are available at the Sofitel (415/598-9000) "at a special guaranteed rate for conference attendees." - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here's a PGP public key for use at my office computer only: - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3a mQCNAixhYsIAAAEEANPvKYGwdSeUvJuMF1PH4sydYFiAOV3iKW+ZUle9HeTeG8xq hEJNu3MsOqsnYSeXkamsVlNR07bWipSAdSmeHJKVhARLDchN7P0n8gg65lJzZBJc ZaOo8KfCd6fF1etj8g8TD7cf7rHhOLI2QyPtNq0N2/i/W/lNPvEzOz6fx5dFAAUR tC1KLiBLZW50IEhhc3RpbmdzIDxoYXN0aW5nc0Bjb3VyaWVyOC5hZXJvLm9yZz4= =Yxil - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Kent - <hastings(a)courier8.aero.org> Ham packet radio: WA6ZFY @ N6YN.#SOCA.CA.USA.NA -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLSrrovEzOz6fx5dFAQGzRAP+LupdOPffenceBEzZjz50S3nL+jjHNsfK EmRpj4FfTiQfSu6HLeBTV8H9QJtQ9lJX8Q7US8nWvOkcT/6UXMWJEUL6aOFZpe8d +PDq5Z00EO7pMN6odmijfZtGZOhVF/GIscgwokhWHiCi2ZBPIXtooet/7bK0DOK6 12cGySl0WPo= =VjBf -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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One-Time Pad Available
by jpinson＠fcdarwin.org.ec 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Beta test version of OTP-PC is ready for release. OTP-PC is a MS DOS version of the Vernam One-time pad, an unbreakable but somewhat clumsy cipher. I have added several features to make the one-time pad easier to use. -OTP-PC can use a large pad (codebook) for multiple messages. This feature is more efficient than using multiple smaller pads. -Optional Precompression of the plain text reduces consumption of the pad, and masks the size of the original file. -The portions of the pad used each session are overwritten, both on encoding and decoding, to prevent reuse. -Encoded files have a 2-stage header. The first stage, an un- encrypted "bootstrap", automates the decode process. The second encrypted header contains more sensitive information. -A 32 bit CRC (stored in the encrypted header) verifies reconstruction of the original file. -Automatic wiping of intermediate compressed files. If anyone would like to volunteer to test OTP-PC, and give me any suggestions or bug reports, please send me a message. Please indicate your preference for UUencode, Mime Base64, BinHex, or PGP ASCII Armor. I will send you both the executable and ANSI C (Borland C++ V3.0) source code. Jim Pinson jpinson(a)fcdarwin.org.ec

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Wiping files on compressed disks.
by jpinson＠fcdarwin.org.ec 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I did a few tests on wiping compressed (Stacker) files: Sdir, the Stacker directory command, reported a 900k PKZip file had a compression ratio of 1.0:1 (no compression). I wiped the file using the same character repeatedly, and sdir reported the resultant file had a compression ratio of 15.9:1 I wiped another copy of the zip file using sets of increasing characters (0-255). After this wipe the compression ratio was 8.0:1 Lastly, I wiped the file using random characters, generated using Turboc's random() function. This time, the compression ratio was 1.0:1, the same as the original. Sounds like wiping with random characters may indeed be the way to go to avoid "slack" at the end of the file. One interesting note: When I fragmented the original zip file into 50K segments with a "chop" program, sdir reported that each segment had a compression ratio of 1.1:1, even though the original file showed no compression. When I created 10K segments, I got a compression ratio of 1.6:1 Pkzip however, was unable to compress these file segments at all. I suspect that Stacker is not really compressing these smaller files in the normal sense, but is storing them more efficiently (better sector or cluster size?). Jim Pinson

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cryptocosmology
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Cryptocosmology: sufficently advanced communication is indistinguishable from noise. I really like this! Its kind of a corollary to Clarks (Arthur C that is) third law "Any sufficently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I guess this means that if there are other civilizations out there, and they have Cypherpunks, and they are just a little more advanced, then the people at S.E.T.I. are wasting there time (and to beat Tim to it "our Bucks!") Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLSswbtCcBnAsu2t1AQET7QP/fYzAidhb05NkSJOLNEDHLtclna47n1Im hxRYGgKZGAgkHkM1BfsCCOBNSZehhQ2H36WM6VGs/ZZDHlowrbunfBuEtEWl52Lm rchJPCnpK0Z72M+oTBtDo2V+eUdppTCaLaJ9EEvzLRCaRnpOjhTwFAtmkjKjKhNh mkE9jDlfJlk= =fvQv -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Extropians please excuse the dupe.

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automatic mail scanning software
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was just cleaning up my office, throwing out a bunch of vendor literature from a recent unixexpo, when a flyer for a product called "MpScan" from an outfit called "CyberSoft" caught my eye. This product, as advertised, "automatically searches outgoing email for company classified material". Aside from being configurable to do stuff like block mail to certain addresses, it also " ...uses the powerful, user-tested CVDL scanning language..." and can generate "...reports which can be used to look for unusual changes in Email usage...". A "version 2" promises "many more feaures using an AI engine". All this can be yours for only $49,000 per mail server, or $200,000 per site license. You get free upgrades until the end of 1997. -matt

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Non-techie Crypto book?
by fnerd＠smds.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Is there a good not-very-technical, but up-to-date book on crypto? An acquaintance asks. -fnerd - - cryptocosmology- sufficiently advanced communication is indistinguishable from noise - god is in the least significant bits -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvt3niQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2tPEot1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hSnC1R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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ASAP'94: Call for papers
by cappello＠cs.ucsb.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Since many people withdrew for the holidays, I thought it best to resend the following Call. The Conference attracts those who design/implement special-purpose computing systems. I welcome privately mailed suggestions for either a keynote speaker or an invited speaker (we will have up to 3 invited presentations). Pete ----------------------------------------------------------- A S A P '94 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON APPLICATION-SPECIFIC ARRAY PROCESSORS 22-24 August 1994 The Fairmont Hotel San Francisco Sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society ASAP'94 is an international conference on application- specific computing systems. This conference's lineage traces back to the First International Workshop on Systolic Arrays held in Oxford, England, in July 1986, and has con- tinued through the International Conference on Application- Specific Array Processors held in Venice, Italy, in Oct. 1993. Areas for application-specific computing systems are many and varied. Some samples areas follow: CAD tools; com- putational biology, chemistry, geology, pharmacology, phy- sics, and physiology; cryptography; data base, information retrieval, and compression; electronic commerce; high- performance networks; medical equipment; robotics and prosthetics; signal and image processing. Aspects of application-specific computing systems that are of interest include, but are not limited to: - Application-specific architectures - Application-specific fault tolerance strategies - Application-specific test & evaluation strategies - CAD tools for application-specific systems - Design methodology for application-specific systems - Special-purpose systems for fundamental algorithms - Implementation methodology & rapid prototyping - Standard hardware components & software objects - Systems software: languages, compilers, operating systems The conference will present a balanced technical pro- gram covering the theory and practice of application- specific computing systems. Of particular interest are con- tributions that either achieve large performance gains with application-specific computing systems, introduce novel architectural concepts, present formal and practical methods for the specification, design and evaluation of these sys- tems, analyze technology dependencies and the integration of hardware and software components, or describe and evaluate fabricated systems. The conference will feature an opening keynote address, technical presentations, a panel discussion, and poster presentations. One of the poster sessions is reserved for on-going projects and experimental systems. INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS Please send 5 copies of your double-spaced typed manuscript (maximum 5000 words) with an abstract to a Pro- gram Co-Chair. Your submission letter should indicate which of your paper's areas are most relevant to the conference, and which author is responsible for correspondence. Your paper should be unpublished and not under review for any other conference or workshop. The Proceedings will be published by the IEEE Computer Society Press. CALENDAR OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 18 Feb. Deadline for receipt of papers. 29 Apr. Notification of authors. 24 Jun. Deadline for receipt of photo-ready paper. 22 Aug. Conference begins. GENERAL CO-CHAIRS Prof. Earl E. Swartzlander, Jr. Prof. Benjamin W. Wah e.swartzlander(a)compmail.com wah(a)manip.crhc.uiuc.edu Electrical & Computer Engineering Coordinated Science Lab. University of Texas University of Illinois Austin, TX 78712 1308 West Main Street Urbana, IL 61801 (512) 471-5923 (217) 333-3516 (512) 471-5907 (Fax) (217) 244-7175 (Fax) PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS Prof. Peter Cappello Prof. Robert M. Owens cappello(a)cs.ucsb.edu owens(a)cse.psu.edu Computer Science Computer Science & Engineering University of California Pennsylvania State Univ. Santa Barbara, CA 93106 University Park, PA 16802 (805) 893-4383 (814) 865-9505 (805) 893-8553 (Fax) (814) 865-3176 (Fax) EUROPEAN PUBLICITY CHAIR Prof. Vincenzo Piuri e-mail piuri(a)ipmel1.polimi.it Dept. of Electronics and Information Politecnico di Milano p.za L. da Vinci 32 I-20133 Milano, Italy +39-2-23993606 +39-2-23993411 (Fax) Please forward this Call to all interested parties.

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Klinton's Gestapo
by an3747＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From an AP story Jan 4 President Clinton commended the nation's fallen spies and their colleagues of the Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday, saying espionage helped win the Cold War and now is needed to guard against new evils. Addressing hundreds of CIA employees on his first visit to the top-secret agency, Clinton said ``the new world remains dangerous'' as threats of terrorism, ethnic conflict and militant nationalism challenge the intelligence community. About 400 workers crowded the marble lobby of the agency's headquarters; others lined hallways, watching the president's address on TV monitors. The employees applauded several times as Clinton paid tribute to their work at a time when some critics are questioning the agency's role in the post-Cold War era. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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cryptopolitics:
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

cryptopolitics: Any sufficiently advanced government is indistinguishable from anarchy.

2 1

Butt-Head
by nobody＠rosebud.ee.uh.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

L.A. Times Jan. 3, 1994 p. D1 THAT'S WHAT HE GETS FOR COMPLAINING SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Computer Inc., after receiving a complaint from famed scientist Carl Sagan, has changed the internal code name for an upcoming model to "Butt-Head Astronomer" from "Carl Sagan," the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Sagan asked the company to stop using his name after an article about the new computer appeared in MacWeek magazine, the newspaper said. The Computer is one of three Apple models that will use the PowerPC microprocessor, which was developed by an alliance of Apple, Motorola Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. For those of tender sensibilities, Butt-Head Astronomer will be known as BHA for short. -Bloomberg Business News

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A Crypto Biblio
by Michael Edward Marotta 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

number 006 CLACKER'S DIGEST December 6, 1992. philosophy and applications for analytical engines ------------------------------------------------------------------ (46 lines) A Cryptography Bibliography by mercury(a)well.sf.ca.us (Technically, cryptography is MAKING codes while cryptanalysis is BREAKING them. Both are subsumed under cryptology. A CIPHER is a regular transposition such as A=Z, B=Y, etc., while a CODE is a table of arbitrary symbols.) Kahn, David, THE CODEBREAKERS, MacMillan, 1967. The MOST complete history with specific examples. Written before public keys, RSA, etc., but still THE place to start. Marotta, Michael, THE CODE BOOK, Loompanics, 1987, Overview of history and post-1967 developments. Sinkov, Abraham, ELEMENTARY CRYPTANALYSIS: A MATHEMATICAL APPROACH, Random House, 1968. Sinkov worked for Friedman on the breaking of Purple. First rate. Gaines, Helen Fouche, CRYPTANALYSIS, Dover, 1956. A classic work. The first step to breaking codes and ciphers. Lysing, Henry, SECRET WRITING, Dover, 1974. Another reprint of another classic. Smith, Laurence Dwight, CRYPTOGRAPHY, Dover, 1955. Ditto. Konheim, Alan G., CRYPTOGRAPHY: A PRIMER, John Wiley, 1981. Textbook for mathematicians from IBM's Watson Center. Includes public keys, digital signatures. Meyer, Carl H., and Matyas Stephen M., CRYPTOGRAPHY, John Wiley, 1982. From IBM Cryptography Competency Center. For computers, includes public keys, digital signatures. Weber, Ralph E., UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC CODES AND CIPHERS 1775- 1938, Precedent, 1979. Not just a history! The appendix contains the all the keys!! Chadwick, THE DECIPHERMENT OF LINEAR B, Vintage, 1958. Worked with Michael Ventris on unraveling Minoan script. Yardley, Herbert O., THE AMERICAN BLACK CHAMBER, Ballantine 1981, Random House, 1931. Yardley broke German ciphers in WWI and then Japanese ciphers of 1920, and was fired in 1931 because "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail." (anonymous), THE DATA ENCRYPTION STANDARD, National Bureau of Standards, January 1977, NTIS NBS-FIPS PUB 46. (anonymous), DATA SECURITY AND THE DATA ENCRYPTION STANDARD, National Bureau of Standards, 1978, Pub 500-27; CODEN: XNBSAV. Rivest, Ronald L., Shamir, A., and Adleman, L., "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-key Cryptosystems," COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM, February, 1979. The last word. -------------------------- 30 ------------------------------------

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AT&T licenses crypto modules
by paul＠poboy.b17c.ingr.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Below is a press release posted by David Arneke of AT&T to the Telecom Digest. It looks like the licensing chain goes RSA -> ISC -> AT&T -> you, but it's encouraging that these libraries are available: they offer good potential for continuing and even accelerating the spread of strong crypto out beyond the bounds of the online world. -Paul AT&T LICENSES LINKABLE CODE FOR SECURE SOFTWARE GREENSBORO, North Carolina -- AT&T is giving software developers access to linkable code modules for encryption, public key exchange and other communications security functions. AT&T announced today that a comprehensive library of linkable code modules, including RSA security technology and the NIST Digital Signature Algorithm, is available for licensing. Linkable code is available in the form of linkable object module libraries and Windows Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs), which are under license from Information Security Corporation of Deerfield, Illinois. [ .. deletia .. ] "Electronic commerce has an inherent requirement for privacy, data integrity, authentication and non-repudiation," said Larry Salter, director of secure systems and services for AT&T Secure Communications Systems. "These capabilities are ideal for PCMCIA and smart-card applications as well as conventional software for PCs and workstations." The package includes code for DES encryption, the ElGamal public key cryptosystem, the Digital Signature Algorithm, the Secure Hash Standard and most RSA security functions, including RSA encryption, key management and digital signatures; MD5 hashing functions; and the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol. A proprietary encryption algorithm for exportable applications is available as well. More than a dozen military and civilian federal agencies and a growing number of corporations have already licensed the code for new software applications, Salter said. "This is a full range of information security functions, relying on the most widely accepted government and commercial standards," Salter said. Prices for code packages containing DSA technology are $750 for the DOS/Windows version, $1,000 for the Macintosh version and $1250 for the UNIX version. For code packages containing RSA technology are $300 for the DOS/Windows version, $400 for the Macintosh version and $500 for the UNIX version. The license allows developers to load the code into two workstations for software development. Royalty payments are required for distribution of applications to end users. [ .. descriptions of AT&T's shrinkwrapped products deleted .. ] Software developers can get more information on licensing the AT&T linkable code module library by calling the AT&T Secure Communications Customer Service Center, 1 800 203-5563. -- Paul Robichaux, KD4JZG | "Change the world for a better tomorrow. But perobich(a)ingr.com | watch your ass today." - aaron(a)halcyon.com Intergraph Federal Systems | Be a cryptography user- ask me how.

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farewell cypherwonks...
by Jim Demmers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I picked up the following tidbit off of the Computists' Communique: The Cypherwonks list for electronic democracy, cryptography, digital cash, etc., "has essentially died at the hand of one of its founders and his numerous detractors." Other members are seeking a moderated forum. [Sam Sternberg (samsam(a)vm1.yorku.ca) NETWORKS and COMMUNITY, 1/3/94. net-hap.] - jim |=======================================================================| | | | Jim Demmers Public Domain, Inc. INET: jdemmers(a)pd.org | | P.O. Box 8899 jim.demmers(a)oit.gatech.edu | | Atlanta, GA 30306-0899 balder(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu | | USA | | Phone: 404-377-2627 FAX: 404-894-9135 | | | |=======================================================================|

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Microsoft-Cryptography-Redmond, WA
by farber＠central.cis.upenn.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Posted-Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 03:03:07 -0500 >Newsgroups: sci.crypt >Path: >netnews.upenn.edu!newsserver.jvnc.net!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd. >com!uunet!microsoft!wingnut!y-wait >From: y-wait(a)microsoft.com (Usenet Job Response Account) >Subject: Microsoft-Cryptography-Redmond, WA >Organization: Microsoft Corporation >Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 01:27:44 GMT >Distribution: na >Lines: 35 >Apparently-To: farber@linc > >MICROSOFT > * * ADVANCED CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY DIVISION * * > >Do you need a research challenge which results >in tangable product? Then the Advanced Consumer >Technology Division at Microsoft is the place >for you! Microsoft is looking to challenge the >brightest mathematical minds with the latest >advances in cryptography. The ideal candidate >will be responsible for the research, analysis, >verification, and recommendation of cryptographic >standards as well as the design of new standards. >Candidate should be familiar with authentication >techniques, blind signatures, digital signature >and time-stamping techniques, public key >encryption systems, hashing methods, and >encryption standards. Familiarity with RSA, DES, >minimum knowledge systems, and Digital Cash/Smart >Card technology a plus. A MS/Phd degree in >Mathematics, with a focus on cryptography desired. > >If you are interested in working in a small team >environment developing first version products, >mail your resume to: > > Microsoft Corporation > Attn: Recruiting > Dept. N5930-0105 > One Microsoft Way > Redmond, WA 98052-6399 > >or FAX your resume to 206-869-0947, Attn: N5930-0105 > >No phone calls please. We are an equal opportunity >employer and support workforce diversity. > >

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Re: cryptopolitics:
by freeman＠MasPar.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike Ingle says: > cryptopolitics: Any sufficiently advanced government is indistinguishable > from anarchy. And conversely? -- Jay Freeman

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