December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Clipper Comparisons for non-geeks
by tim werner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) >Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 21:57:23 -0700 (PDT) >Speaking of landlords, when I was renting I certainly had no >expectation that the landlord had any "rights" to invite the police in >to inspect my place for guns, drugs, or other such "contraband." Was I >mistaken? (I'm not saying a landlord can't enter the premises...it >depends on the rental agreement. Most landlords give warning. Some may >snoop. But I think letting in the cops, without a warrant, is still an >illegal act. I could be wrong.) In Ohio, they have to give 24 hrs notice before coming in, unless they smell smoke or gas, or there is some other clear evidence of an emergency situation. Not sure about what they can do if they come in because of an emergency and find you practicing unsafe sex, or something. >With so much of our world increasingly being owned by the State (the >consequence of a dollar being taxed many times in its life is that the >State ends up controlling lots of land, lots of highways, facilities, >military bases, courthouses, schools, etc. Eventually they may get it >all.), this "we can frisk you because now you're on our turf" approach >may put a de facto ending to the Bill of Rights. I'm not too worried about protection from the state in this case. That's what the Bill of Rights is about, and I'm certain these warrantless searches will fail any Constitutionality test precisely because the property is government owned. The scary thing has been our general erosion of a right to privacy from private enterprise. For instance, most big companies now routinely make urinating in a jar a requirement for employment. It's much easier for a private entity to get away with something like that than for the government. tw

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New Remailer
by Istvan Oszaraz von Keszi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Could someone give me some quick direction on installing and running a new remailer. Due to system constraints, I've had to rewrite some of the mailer software, I've tested it, and it seems to operate fine. My question is what is necessary, to create an address for the remailer? I'd like it addressed as something other than my personal account. Do I contact my sysadmins for a new address, or is this something which is user configurable. Thanks BTW: Do I open up the remailer to the public or do I ask some of the users of remailers to help me test it prior to a world release.

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Clipper Comparisons for non-geeks
by Robert A. Hayden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(First, geeks is a complimentary term, finger me for info :-) I was talking to some friends about Clipper and it's dangers. Unfortunately, they are not very computer literate and really didn't grasp what exactly escrowing meant or anything. Anyone have some more-common, real world, analogies I could make for future discussions? ____ Robert A. Hayden <=> hayden(a)krypton.mankato.msus.edu \ /__ -=-=-=-=- <=> -=-=-=-=- \/ / Finger for Geek Code Info <=> Political Correctness is \/ Finger for PGP 2.3a Public Key <=> P.C. for "Thought Police" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=- (GEEK CODE 1.0.1) GAT d- -p+(---) c++(++++) l++ u++ e+/* m++(*)@ s-/++ n-(---) h+(*) f+ g+ w++ t++ r++ y+(*)

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Key Eater Needed
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal Finney suggests expiring old keys. The first thing we would need is a way to clear the keyservers of such dead keys. The keyservers are already up to 1.3 MB. Many of those keys must be long dead. In any case, the key servers cannot just accumulate keys forever. There is no way to know now when a key was sent to a server, so it is hard to know when to delete it. One way would be to keep track of when new keys are sent or updated, and delete any key which has not been updated within a certain time, such as one year. All existing keys could be given six months to live. Those who wanted to keep their present keys could send them again, and others could create new ones. The web of trust model does not lend itself easily to key expirations, because this requires you to frequently get people to re-sign your key, and to re-sign the keys of others. This creates the opportunity for the "here's my new key, and I haven't got it resigned yet" attack. There would have to be a fairly long overlap period between new and old keys, during which time the old key signed the new key. Expirations would complicate the system considerably. --- Mike

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IRS vs. privacy
by m5＠vail.tivoli.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There was a neat piece on NPR Friday about why it's a bad idea to evade filing Federal tax returns. Among the spine-tingling techniques used to pinpoint tax cheats: * The IRS knows about big cash transactions (we knew this already here.) * The IRS has all data from states concerning individuals registered as licensed persons in any field of work; thus, if you're a doctor, lawyer, plumber, electrician, or registered professional engineer, the IRS knows it. * [This blew my socks off] The IRS has subscription data for many national magazines. Thus, if they know you're getting Time & Newsweek & Barron's and USNews but they see no tax return, they nab you. This builds a good case for the notion that the IRS will have big, big problems with digital cash economies. They also probably have problems with electronic magazines mailed through anonymous remailer chains :-) m5

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Cypherpunks Quick Code
by Bill Garland 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks Quick Code V 1.00 ====================== 1. Cypherpunks, QUICK! CODE! 2. Cypherpunks write code. 3. Cypherpunks, WRITE CODE! 4. Cypherpunks, right. Code? 5. Cryptography is all Economics. 6. There is no cypherpunks agenda. 7. According to something tossed around over on the Extropians list, .... 8. i am NOT Detweiller. 9. As long as you use the MD5 hash of the 3DES session keys in the remailer header and PGP in the digital postage stamps, the NSA can't de-cripple your whiffie, er, de-clipple your Hell, man, - the money will still be safe with aunt bessie. 10. DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT INFORMATION in UnAltered Format is .... 11. ag588 is rejecting mail from you. Wendell Noseworthy =========== Just so as not to generate any more wasted bandwidth here, or is that waste more generated bandwidth, whatever, I will forward any suggested changes to the Cypherpunks Quick Code to Wendell Noseworthy for insertion into the next offically cypherpunk-agenda-approved release of the Cypherpunks Quick Code. Send them to me... Bill Garland, whose .sig does channeling for a small fee

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If however Dolphin Encrypt was extremely strong ...
by wet!naga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Sat, 16 Apr 94 21:26:24 -0700 >From: hughes(a)ah.com (Eric Hughes) >Message-Id: <9404170426.AA28904(a)ah.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >In-Reply-To: Anonymous's message of Fri, 15 Apr 1994 12:53:16 -0400 <Added.shfgNum00UdZ0OvU4M(a)andrew.cmu.edu> >Subject: Dolphin Encryption Tutorial >Precedence: bulk >Status: R Eric Hughes quotes "Anonymous": >>Are you somehow implying the Dolphin Encrypt withstands critical >>examination? Be real. Real? "Anonymous" here reveals that he has not been keeping up with the literature. DE was examined critically by Prof. Cipher Deavours in the October 1993 issue of Cryptologia, who (after studying the C source code for the encryption algorithm) wrote: "The diffusion process employed in the ciphering of data is fairly complex for an inexpensive system such as this one." Eric then allows as how: >Last time Dolphin Encrypt reared its insecure head in this forum, >these same issues came up. The cipher that DE uses is not public and >was not designed by a person of known cryptographicc competence. It >should therefore be considered extremely weak. However, in Peter Meyer's article we read: >The >encryption algorithm used in Dolphin Encrypt is defined by the C source >code for the encryption and decryption functions, and this source code is >part of a publicly available C function library (the Dolphin Encryption >Library). The method is not secret and its full details are available for >examination to anyone who purchases the library. Perhaps the DE cipher is not "public" in the sense that it is widely available on unix sites, but it is "publicly available". Perhaps the source code is not posted on sites such as soda because the publisher does not wish to expose himself to the the charge of making a strong crypto system available for export. Eric again quotes "Anonymous": >>The comparison, fairly useless as it is, is even more useless without >>this further information. > >Agreed. For all we know Eric himself posted that "anonymous" message, so he could quote him out of context. As I recall, Anonymous seemed to have (deliberately?) misunderstood the part about the statistical test (and Eric agrees with him). >I repeat my recommendation of before: Do not use Dolphin Encrypt if >you want secrecy. If you want something on the scale of a secret >decoder ring, fine. > >Eric By his own admission Eric is ignorant of the DE cipher and is ignorant of the cryptographic competence of the author (or authors) of DE. Yet, rather than withholding judgment until more information is available, he makes a strong negative recommendation (and adds an insult). I would imagine that, in the opinion of most people, recommendations based upon ignorance such as this are worthless. Eric seems to have a burr up his ass regarding either DE or its author(s). His misrepresentation (e.g. that the DE cipher is not public) and lack of logic (e.g. we don't know that X is true therefore X is false) suggest that there is an emotional basis to his "recommendation". Apparently as regards DE Eric is not capable of anything except smear tactics. The astute readers of this list are not likely to be fooled by this.

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RE: Laundering money through commodity futures
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

hughes(a)ah.com (Eric Hughes) posts to C'punks: >> This zero sum nature is the key to laundering the money. Person A and >> Person B get together and guess that the price for a commodity is going >> to go up. > > Guess. Read that word again; it's important. > >[stuff elided] > The example is ludicrous, but the conclusion is valid. More > transactions means more interactions between them and more possibility > to hide something inside the ever-increasing flux. On the OP-Ed page of the WSJ a week ago thursday (page A14) is an article that describes a way to make a $100,000 bribe look like extrodinary luck in the cattle futures market. The trick that both the initial poster and Eric missed is that you don't guess. You need a shady broker who makes a saddle - both side of the trade - and doesn't register either. Once the market has moved, one will post a gain, and the other a loss. So you could, hypothetically of course, post the loser to a huge poultry conglmerate, and the winner to a successful laywer's account. The Poultry firm would write it off as a normal market loss that was protecting their operations. The laywer would claim that she read the WSJ and was lucky. But untracable electronic markets will have lots of transactions, so there will be lots of ways to play these games. This is what drives the taxman crazy. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: Clipper Comparisons for non-geeks
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Well, one way I've described the clipper to a non-computer literate > person is to have them imagine a situation where the government > required that you gave them a copy of your housekey, and, if you > decided to get a safe-deposit-box, they would get a copy of that, too. Yep. And your car keys. And your bicycle lock. And the bag you deposit your store's money at the bank in. And of course, once non-Clipper crypto becomes illegal, if they can't find the escrow key for your car, they'll just confiscate it - after all, you were parking it on a public street.

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Re: 'Nother MIT talk on crypto...
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: hughes(a)ah.com (Eric Hughes) > Micali's "fair" cryptosystem is a much better key surrender system > than Clipper, but it still allows non-intended recipients for a > message. > > For this reason, I don't like it either. > > Fight _all_ intrusions. > > Eric Right - here are some quotes from Micali's paper in the Crypto 92 proceedings. "Abstract. We show how to construct public-key cryptosystems that are _fair_, that is, strike a good balance, in a democratic country, between the needs of the Government and those of the Citizens. [...] "In this paper we show how cryptographic protocols can be successfully and efficiently used to build cryptosystems that are fairer, that is, that strike a better balance, in a democratic country, between the needs of society and those of the individual." Micali's system is basically a key escrow system that would be quite appealing to those who love Clipper. At least he has the honesty to make it clear that such a system makes more sense if competing systems are made illegal: "Of course, if using any other type of public-key cryptosystem were to be made _illegal_, Fair PKC's would be most effective in guaranteeing both private communication to law-obeying citizens and law enforcement. (In fact, if a criminal uses a phone utilizing a Fair PKC to plan a crime, he can still be secured to justice by court-authorized line tapping. If he, instead, illegally uses another cryptosystem, the content of his conversations will never be revealed even after a court authorization for tapping his lines, but, at least, he will be convicted for something else: his use of an unlawful cryptosystem.) Nonetheless, as we shall discuss in section 4, Fair PKC's are quite useful even without such a law." When I first heard of this so-called "Fair" (one of the most misused words in political debate) system, my reaction was to snort in derision. But since Clipper it starts to look like the lesser of two evils. That just shows how the terms of the debate can shift. Eric is right that the best thing to do is to remain firmly committed to free access to cryptographic technology for everyone. Hal

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Warrantless searches -- A sign of things to come?
by paul＠hawksbill.sprintmrn.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Page 1 story in The Washington Post Sunday (94.04.17) reads, "Clinton Lets Police Raid Projects," "Warrantless Searches Said to Be Needed For Tenants Safety." For those who haven't been following this ludicrous story, the USG has now decided that Chicago Housing Authority-sponsored, and warrantless, searches of dwellings within the CHA, is "A Good Thing" (tm) and specifically geared towards uncovering weapons of criminals (or would-be criminals) for the safety of law-abiding Housing tenants. Personally, I find this mentality alarming and indicative of a growing trend within the government. "Big Brother knows best." Vile and Nauseating. This is another absurdity in the "War on Drugs" and "War on Crime." More government-sponsored "wars" are undoubtedly on the horizon, perhaps even a war on non-escrowed crypto. I suppose things will get worse before they get better. _______________________________________________________________________________ Paul Ferguson US Sprint Enterprise Internet Engineering tel: 703.904.2437 Herndon, Virginia USA internet: paul(a)hawk.sprintmrn.com

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Re: rng, anyone?
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> need good RNG WHile Blum-Blum-Shub is probably the cool way to go, RSAREF uses repeated iterations of MD5 to generate its pseudo-randoms, which can be reasonably secure and use code you've probably already got hooks from perl for.

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Re: Key Eater Needed
by Matthew J Ghio 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike Ingle <MIKEINGLE(a)delphi.com> wrote: > There is no way to know now when a key was sent to a server, so it is hard > to know when to delete it. One way would be to keep track of when new > keys are sent or updated, and delete any key which has not been updated > within a certain time, such as one year. All existing keys could be given > six months to live. Those who wanted to keep their present keys could > send them again, and others could create new ones. > > The web of trust model does not lend itself easily to key expirations, > because this requires you to frequently get people to re-sign your key, > and to re-sign the keys of others. This creates the opportunity for the > "here's my new key, and I haven't got it resigned yet" attack. There > would have to be a fairly long overlap period between new and old keys, > during which time the old key signed the new key. Expirations would > complicate the system considerably. How about people just keep their keys, and the signatures, but they re-sign their own keys every six months or so? In order to keep their keys on the keyserver, they must submit a PGP signed message to prove that they still have that key. If they don't, the key is assumed to be lost, and it is deleted.

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Key Eater Needed. NOT!
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matthew J Ghio <mg5n+(a)andrew.cmu.edu> writes: > How about people just keep their keys, and the signatures, but they > re-sign their own keys every six months or so? In order to keep their > keys on the keyserver, they must submit a PGP signed message to prove > that they still have that key. If they don't, the key is assumed to be > lost, and it is deleted. I have no problem with periodic deletion of keys from keyservers. They are interesting, but not a very important part of strong crypto (IMHO). My objection is to anything that makes the key itself invalid over a period that I don't chose. I'm not sure what problem you are trying to solve. Loading the whole public ring from the servers exceeds my definition of reasonable procesing now. Since the number of keys keeps growing, I expect that it will never be SOP to munge all of them. You will get keys directly, or get a few specific ones on demand. If you're just trying to save disk space on the keyservers, I'm not all that sure it is worth the effort. Disks are cheap, and getting cheaper. But your approach is as good as any. I know there are lots of keys on the servers that are no longer active -- I collected a few hundred that I exchanged with Phil K two years ago, and know many are unused starting with strnlght, the folks at CERT, and Brad Cox's key of that vintage. Even if a fair percentage, say 25% are dead, the savings are pretty trivial. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: Key Eater Needed
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike Ingle says: There is no way to know now when a key was sent to a server, so it is hard to know when to delete it. One way would be to keep track of when new keys are sent or updated, and delete any key which has not been updated within a certain time, such as one year. All existing keys could be given six months to live. Those who wanted to keep their present keys could send them again, and others could create new ones. <- Why not a note sent from the server to the key address to the effect: Your key has been deleted.... etc. Not only will this fish out some of the changed addresses and thus non- updated keys, but also remind the legitimate user who just hasn't gotten or looked to get a new signature in 6mos - Years to think about a new key and a revocation. I assume revocations will be kept for good?

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Re: Laundering money through commodity futures
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>[then is described the double-up strategy] >>Ideally, you play this game with two players with relatively deep >>pockets. This means that A can cover the short term loses. >Here's the flaw, in full glory. This scheme is the classic >double-or-nothing martingale. It doesn't work. The "relatively deep >pockets" of A have to be infinite, because that's the expected value >of the amount of A's intermediate loss in the random walk to the >completion of the transaction. >The example is ludicrous, but the conclusion is valid. More >transactions means more interactions between them and more possibility >to hide something inside the ever-increasing flux. There is a major difference between playing this game with commodities and trying to win with a double or nothing Martingale scheme in a casino. The casino always takes their cut. The transaction costs in the futures market are often much smaller if you're dealing with significant amounts of money. Many of the people who experiment with these schemes have very large pools of money to move. You must realize that laundering money was usually done through much more inefficient ways. Some typical techniques involve double billing and inflated construction costs. If Entity A wants to move money to Entity B then, Entity A contracts with B for a big new building. B charges too much for the building and A pays up. This can be done with supplies or other commodities. The problem is that you've got a brand new building that you've got to sell/lease or whatever. So, are there problems? Yes. But it can be much more efficient and much more transparent than almost other scheme. Remember that the flux between the two entities in the commodities market is not immediately apparent. You don't need to use the same broker. One could use a broker in Hong Kong and the other could use one in Chicago. You don't even need to trade the same contracts. One side of the deal could buy gold futures market marked in pounds sold in London and the other side could sell gold futures marked in dollars in Chicago. The thousands of arbitrageurs out there will make sure that the markets move together. (You can also hedge your deal against the currency risk.) Who is going to piece these two together?

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RE: Warrantless searches -- A sign of things to come?
by GERSTEIN＠SCSUD.CTSTATEU.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 17 Apr 94 13:39:39 paul(a)hawksbill.sprintmrn.com (Paul Ferguson) wrote: >A Page 1 story in The Washington Post Sunday (94.04.17) reads, >"Clinton Lets Police Raid Projects," "Warrantless Searches Said to Be >Needed For Tenants Safety." > >For those who haven't been following this ludicrous story, the USG has >now decided that Chicago Housing Authority-sponsored, and warrantless, >searches of dwellings within the CHA, is "A Good Thing" (tm) and >specifically geared towards uncovering weapons of criminals (or >would-be criminals) for the safety of law-abiding Housing tenants. > >Personally, I find this mentality alarming and indicative of a growing >trend within the government. "Big Brother knows best." > >Vile and Nauseating. > >This is another absurdity in the "War on Drugs" and "War on Crime." >More government-sponsored "wars" are undoubtedly on the horizon, >perhaps even a war on non-escrowed crypto. > >I suppose things will get worse before they get better. ======== While I don't agree with these searches either, you have to understand the situation that the people in the CHA buildings are in. Did you see the show that was done on it? (I think it was Nightline, they did a whole hour on it) Anyway, the point is, these people aren't safe in their own homes. The parents keep their children home from school because they are afraid that they will either get shot (which happens quite a lot, one child was shot by a "gangsta" with a sniper rifle while his mother was walking him to school- the kid was about 5 years old) or that the kids will get involved in the gangs. For a while, the Chicago PD were unwilling to enter the buildings until after the shooting had stopped, and would then go in to tag and bag the bodies. IT WAS BAD!!! The landlord of the little kid who got shot decided he wasn't going to put up with that, and started the CHA PD, and they were kicking ass until the ACLU got involved. Slightly related is the fact that I live on my school's campus in the residence halls. If the resident advisors feel there is probable cause for something and decides to do a room search, I can do nothing about it but hope they don't find what ever it is their looking for (usually because I don't do anything bad >:)). Anyway, if they find something (drugs, beer in excess of the 6 can limit, firearms, PGP, etc.) they can call the campus police (real, live, actual cops) in to bust my ass and nail it to the wall. BUT NO WARRANT WAS SERVED! Does that mean I can get the ACLU up the school's ass? If the school says they can do that because I pay to live on their property, then why can't the CHA do what they want? Just my 0.02¢..... adam "After this, nothing will shock me." ---------- "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 4, 1994

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Re: 'Nother MIT talk on crypto...
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I saw the talk Micali gave on his Fair Crypto systems at Crypto 92. Someone asked him about governmental abuse and he said (I approximate), "Well, you have to trust them. That's why they're called trustees."

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RE: Warrantless searches -- A sign of things to come?
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 17 Apr 94 13:39:39 paul(a)hawksbill.sprintmrn.com (Paul Ferguson) wrote: >A Page 1 story in The Washington Post Sunday (94.04.17) reads, >"Clinton Lets Police Raid Projects," "Warrantless Searches Said to Be >Needed For Tenants Safety." > [Deletions] What really gets me here is the alienability of the rights in question. One of the prevailing arguements seems to be "the tenants are willing to sacrifice their rights for more safety." This of course misreads the question. If it were only a questions of relinquishing your own rights then there are procedures for the waiver and consent to search. What drives me up the wall is some tenants saying they are willing to waive their own rights for safety when what they are really doing is waiving EVERYONES rights for their safety. This is merely another load of whiskey for the toothache. Bust down some doors and we will solve the nations problem of violence. I have to hand it to the administration, they managed to divert the attention of the media from the other major screw-ups and cast a "fight the violence" spotlight on it. At least this cluster-fuck is (in the current atmosphere) defendable. What a crock. The ease with which this nation disregards its own fundamental principles disturbs me. -uni- (Dark)

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RE: Warrantless searches -- A sign of things to come?
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The ease with which this nation disregards its own fundamental principles > disturbs me. A government official was quoted in today's LA Times as saying approximately, "I'm sure we can square this with the Fourth Amendment... this is an emergency situation." Eli ebrandt(a)hmc.edu To which I reply: Then declare a national emergency and suspend the constitution. Any emergency not sufficent enough to do this isn't a national emergency. The only thing that bothers me more than the use of rhetoric like "The War on Drugs" or "The War on Crime" or "The Health Care CRISIS" to cover up the fact that rights are being circumvented or outright eliminated is the willingness of the population to buy into the game. -uni- (Dark)

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MS Word - don't email documents
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Apr 11 Computer Currents: Windows Magazine Uncovers Word "Time Bomb" Ever wonder if someone could read your mind? Well, if you use any Microsoft Word version 2.0 through 6.0 you may have unwittingly provided someone with your thought processes. If you ever create documents which are sent digitally, be aware that your client might be able to read your earlier drafts. This is due to the fact that in Word's default mode, with options Prompt for Summary Info off and Allow Fast Saves on, deleted text portions are retained in the internal document structure. This enables anyone with a file viewer to check your earlier passages -- such as a lower price you were originally going to quote. (Incidentally, you can do the same thing with the Macintosh version and a utility like CanOpener. -- Ed.) By turning Prompt for Summary Info on and Allow Fast Saves off, you can prevent a potential disaster. Since this is not a bug, Microsoft says there is no fix.

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Warrentless Search
by Jeff Davis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Black Unicorn states: >The only thing that bothers me more than the use of rhetoric like >"The War on Drugs" or "The War on Crime" or "The Health Care CRISIS" >to cover up the fact that rights are being circumvented or outright >eliminated is the willingness of the population to buy into the game. >-uni- (Dark) The average citizen operates from a paradigm of self interest, perhaps extended to his/her family. If a governmental action does not resonate with this paradigm- (i.e. "what's in it for me?")- the government action goes largley unnoticed. When the Reagan administration exhumed the 1888 Law allowing military to assist law enforcement, but not make arrests, I took note of that because it directly affected my life. Almost no one else paid any attention to it. Another facet of human nature one can trust is 75% of the population will follow a direct order without much question, given the person issuing the order appears to have the authority to do so. I am Emergency Medically Trained. When the shit hits the fan, I order people to preform specific tasks, most notibally calling 911. If a person stands there and thinks, I order another to do it. It only takes a matter of seconds to organize a concerted team effort to aid the victim- because I am the responsible person. They are not accountable for their actions anymore in their minds, I am. This isn't civilization, it's gregarious herd instinct ;) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLbG1hV/ScHuGXWgVAQFbfQP/Xy6ZvJDwWAUGpuqUM4nXekBb9oH8wxBD LuXuBTUX3IdZzaG9ZRwFLBrZMSEw8t7GXvSZYTh0+LMqM4B2wM6oIa0p8XDuYe++ iyMO/KdZsh5FpJL/sDS1w9OTQQWfoX4bYUSBRE6S/NOtMlHyIpVGDBl4hrJhvwop GaFgmpq45K8= =UtdX -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- PGP PUBLIC KEY via finger! JAFEFFM Speaking & Thinking For Myself! * eagle(a)deeptht.armory.com email info(a)eff.org * *** O U T L A W S On The E L E C T R O N I C F R O N T I E R **** ***** Committed to Free Public Internet Access for World Peace *****

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Re: Warrentless Search
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Davis said: The average citizen operates from a paradigm of self interest, perhaps extended to his/her family. If a governmental action does not resonate with this paradigm- (i.e. "what's in it for me?")- the government action goes largley unnoticed. When the Reagan administration exhumed the 1888 Law allowing military to assist law enforcement, but not make arrests, I took note of that because it directly affected my life. Almost no one else paid any attention to it. <- What you describe, as near as I can tell, is the effect of "entrepreneurial politics." That is when a policy (allegedly) creates general and widespread benefits at a cost that burdens a small portion of the popolous. The incentive is strong for the few opponents to oppose it. These tend to pass when the opponents are poorly represented and cannot make their objections widely known. Compare these with: Client politics: When the benefits of a policy are concentrated, but the burdens widely spread. Small groups have powerful reasons to support the regulation/legislation. The opponents have little reason to resist if it even is clear that the legislation will effect them. These usually pass when watchdog groups are not present. Interest-Group politics: Costs and benefits are narrowly concentrated. The public doesn't have much incentive to be bothered with the legislation and doubts there is a serious effect to them. Interest groups usually carry the day here. Majoritarian politics: All or most of society hopes to gain; all or most hopes to gain. Interest groups have little incentive to form. In general what you seem to want to attribute to a basic non-concern by the people in general is really the fact that none or little of the citizenry feel themselves effected by the legislation. The circumvention of the rights against warrantless search in such a major way is a majoritarian politic issue, and is not comparable to the example that you gave, (baring more specific information). Ignoring the potential ramifications of a seizure of constitutional rights to fight the symptoms of some invented "Crime Crisis" is to me much more indictive of citizen's apathy. I make this assertion with the admission that I don't know the specifics of your example, as you did not provide them. I feel this conversation, which facinates me, bears off of the cypherpunks topic. Unless the voices calling for a more technical and a less political subject matter have waned, I think we should consider another forum. Personally I find the discussion of centralist issues in general important. It's the tie in to cryptography and the lack of a comprehensive list position on the political nexus with the technical that worries me. Sorry for the bandwidth in any event. See, J.Q. Wilson, The Politics of Regulation (1980) for a deeper discussion. -uni- (Dark)

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hyperdisk
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone remember the application hyperdisk? It had encryption functions and I was hoping someone would recall which method it used... -uni- (Dark)

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Re: Autentication gadgets
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I remember seeing some discussion about the security gadgets people from Bell Labs, amonst others, used for logging in from remote sites. It was a s imple credit-card-calculator-like challenge-response device. Any pointers? Sure... We use either an AT&T smart card or the Digital Pathways Securenet Key. We started using the latter because they don't sell (expensive) host software, so they'll disclose the information you need to roll your own host end software. A list of some other authenticator vendors can be found in ftp://ftp.cert.org/pub/cert_advisories/CA-94:01.ongoing.network.monitoring.… Btw -- the comment in there about the Securenet Key not being exportable from the U.S. is wrong, even though it does use DES. It's an authentication device not readily usable for secrecy, so our beloved government has deigned to permit its sale to furriners.

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