December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: GAK
by terrell＠sam.neosoft.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 07 Sep 1995 18:42:06 -0500 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: terrell(a)sam.neosoft.com (Buford Terrell) Subject: Re: GAK >Date: Sun, 3 Sep 1995 21:25:26 -0400 (EDT) >From: Brian Davis <bdavis(a)thepoint.net> >Subject: Re: GAK >On Fri, 1 Sep 1995, Timothy C. May wrote: > >> At 10:56 PM 9/1/95, Buford Terrell wrote: >> >> >If you've ever watched Not_at_all_Funny Home Videos or any of the >> >American Urinal school of tabloid television, you soon start feeling >> >that the real threat to privacy is not the guvmint, but all of >> >the yoyos with their little cam corders running around pointing them >> >at people. >> > >> >Security cameras in ATMS and at airline ticket counters do more >> >to threaten you privacy than do FIBBIE wiretaps, and PGP won't >> >protect you from them. (and usually neither will the courts). >> >> I absolutely agree with this, though this doesn't mean I'll stop worrying >> about the government's plans for key escrow (GAK), about limits on key >> lengths, or about other efforts to thwart strong security. > >I, of course, know of the "dislike" of GAK here. I am curious to know, >however, if the "dislike" is because government would have access under >any circumstances or if the primary worry is that government will cheat >and get access when most would agree that they shouldn't (either by the >judge "cheating" or a TLA stealing it). > >In other words ... if it took agreement by a review board composed of >non-LEA members of this list, would the escrow be acceptable?? > >EBD > In my case, it's simply a matter of principle: the government has no right to know what I'm saying. Search warrants may allow them to get to "things" that I have, but the First and Fifth amendments make words sacred. If the government can eavesdrop on my conversation, then my speech is no longer free. A review board consisting of cypherpunks has no more right to listen to my private conversations than does the FBI, so I would not agree to that proposal either. --buford

1 0

Selling our spin. was: Cypherpunks Press release
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kevin L Prigge <klp(a)gold.tc.umn.edu> writes: > Does anyone know exactly how the press contact thing works? My impression > is that a reporter/journalist stumbles on to someone who knows something > about a particular area, and is willing to be interviewed. Then the next > time a story comes along that deals even slightly with that subject, the > reporter will tend to contact that person. I think the "exact" process varies with the journalist. But you have it generally correct. The press runs on reputations. When a writer gets a story, they look for "reliable sources" to contact. Reputations are based on a lot of things, including knowledge, speaking ability, looks and the ability to emit a sound-bite that is interesting. it is a strange process. I mean, I even got on CNN during the Morris worm. Tim is right, there is no "we" here. We can't have an official spokesperson, we don't agree on much. But we can work from the ground up. There are a number of serious cryptographers on the list, or at least friendly to the list when the S/N ratio makes sense. With a little work, we should be able to find a fairly long list of media contacts. We can even make it media friendly. >From people I've personally seen recently, we could have Doug Humphrey of Digex (nice to have a security-related company President) Bob Stratton of UU.Net (corporate security wiz) Carl Ellison of TIS (usually on c'punks light and at all DCcp meetings) probably others at TIS such as Ken Mendelsen or Steve Walker For the political side, the folks at EFF, CDT, EIPC, etc. And there are others that could be good contacts, such as William H Murray of Delloite and Touche, Matt Blaze of [Bellcore|BellLabs] It might take a while to get permission for referal, but I expect that most security consultants would consider being quoted in mainstream press to be good advertizing. If we make it easy, anyone would be willing to take advantage of the resource. We should also inclue a representative sample of folks who disagree with us. Any real list should include Dorothy Denning and other supporters. We can simply stack the deck. We can make sure that the mainline journalists know where to look, and make sure that CDT, EFF, ACLU, and EPIC have references that are ready when they are asked for referals. Assuming my web server recovers from the mention in comp.risks, I'm more than willing to accept suggestions and have a "security spokes-folks" page. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student http://www.isse.gmu.edu/students/pfarrell Info. Systems & Software Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP key available on homepage #include <standard.disclaimer>

1 0

Re: Big Brother is watching you watch Farenheit 451
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote: > At 08:47 AM 9/4/97 -0400, Brian B. Riley wrote: > >in the process of rereading "Fahrenheit 451" - the recent printing of > >this in paperback features a Marquis that says somethig like "Now, more > >relevant than ever" - as much as I hate having someone else tell me what > >to think ... they certainly seem to be right. It has been over twenty > > BTW, the last copy of F451 I saw really irked me - the cover had > explanatory notes like "Fahrenheit 451, the temperature that books burn!" > and stuff about firemen whose job is setting fires. > Are today's kids dumbing down, or less literate, or is it just enough > longer since the book was written that publishers need to try harder to > get people to read it? Any day, I expect to hear that The State has mandated that all first editions of F451 be confiscated and landfilled. Why? Whatever the true motives, the one they will cite is "public safety": the first (hardback) edition is bound in asbestos. trei(a)process.com

1 0

Re: netscape's response
by Jeff Weinstein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sep 20, 5:16pm, David_A Wagner wrote: > Subject: Re: netscape's response > In article <9509200139.ZM206@tofuhut> you write: > > On Sep 20, 12:29am, Christian Wettergren wrote: > > > One wild idea that I just got was to have servers and clients exchange > > > random numbers (not seeds of course), in a kind of chaining way. Since > > > most viewers connect to a number of servers, and all servers are > > > connected to by many clients, they would mix "randomness sources" with > > > each other, making it impossible to observe the local environment > > > only. And the random values would of course be encrypted under the > > > session key, making it impossible to "watch the wire". > > > > Wow, this is a great idea!! > > Are you quite sure this is a good idea? > > I'd be very scared of it. In particular, it opens up the chance for > adversaries to feed you specially chosen numbers to pollute your seeds. What I should have said is that its a very interesting idea. Given current perceptions of netscape, I should have made clear that I wouldn't do something like this without getting a lot more discussion and review of possible dangers and how to avoid them. I certainly can't fault anyone for wondering if we would just implement this without thinking it through, given recent events. --Jeff -- Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist Netscape Communication Corporation jsw(a)netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw Any opinions expressed above are mine.

1 0

RE: AN OPPORTUNITY NOT TO BE MISSED
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 19:25:24 -0700 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) Subject: Re: An opportunity not to be missed At 1:57 AM 9/14/95, Bill Stewart wrote: >Is Wavy Gravy running his "Nobody for President" campaign again this time? >After all, Nobody's going to balance the budget, and Nobody's going to >get the government out of your bedroom, and on the internet, Nobody can tell >if you're a dog or not :-) Or to update it for today: "Nobody(a)remailer.org for President." --Tim ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

1 0

List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/~raph/premail.html For the PGP public keys of the remailers, finger pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord ?"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"cracker"} = "<remailer(a)anon.efga.org> cpunk mix remix pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord post"; $remailer{'redneck'} = '<config(a)anon.efga.org> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"bureau42"} = "<remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org> cpunk mix pgp ksub hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"neva"} = "<remailer(a)neva.org> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub ?"; $remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix"; $remailer{"medusa"} = "<medusa(a)weasel.owl.de> mix middle" $remailer{"McCain"} = "<mccain(a)notatla.demon.co.uk> mix middle"; $remailer{"valdeez"} = "<valdeez(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"arrid"} = "<arrid(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"hera"} = "<goddesshera(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"htuttle"} = "<h_tuttle(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. remailer(a)crynwr.com is _not_ a remailer. There is no remailer at relay.com. Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator: (cyber mix reno winsock) (weasel squirrel medusa) (cracker redneck) (nym lcs) (valdeez arrid hera) The remailer list here has been out of date for some time, but should be up to date now. I'm still working on updating the web page. Last update: Mon 8 Sep 97 6:48:45 PDT remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- nym config(a)nym.alias.net ####**+#-## 7:03 99.95% hera goddesshera(a)juno.com ----_.---.. 14:56:18 99.95% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net *+*****++**+ 11:30 99.93% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de ----------- 3:17:57 99.83% valdeez valdeez(a)juno.com -__.-*+*-.- 7:50:19 99.81% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net -----_..---* 10:10:24 99.81% bureau42 remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org ..--------- 3:33:37 99.31% arrid arrid(a)juno.com -- -------- 7:27:32 99.15% neva remailer(a)neva.org -+*#+*--* # 25:21 98.45% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca + ++++++ 39:06 97.23% cracker remailer(a)anon.efga.org + +++ +++ 28:43 97.10% replay remailer(a)replay.com +**-++ +** 9:49 96.75% redneck config(a)anon.efga.org -*+* ++# 10:58 96.60% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net ++..+ * -- 2:32:31 84.34% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com **+*++*+ 1:14:29 58.44% History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

1 0

Spam of c'punks list: cleaning it up now.
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Somebody, apparently at ci.diamond-bar.ca.us, has been feeding the last month's worth of Cypherpunks postings back to the Cypherpunks list. You probably saw a few of them. They are still coming in to toad.com. When I got home this afternoon, the load average had hit 150 and most of them were copies of sendmail. This prevented most of the messages from getting out to you, happily. I've cleaned up the ones I found in the queues, and I'll start working next on getting the *valid* cypherpunks messages flowing again... John Gilmore

1 0

Re: EMP & Cars (fwd)
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> > Forwarded message: > > > Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 11:48:08 -0400 (EDT) > > From: Ray Arachelian <sunder(a)brainlink.com> > > Subject: EMP & Cars (fwd) > > > There has been quite an interest in EMP. > > > pulses to a near miss lightning strike. As far as vehicle disabling, There > > are claims that auto manufactures have built in a shut down frequency into > > the computers in certain vehicles. We wound a large coil on a carpet paper > > tube and put an oscillator on it and it would flood a vehicles electrical > > system to shut it down, but it was huge. > > Mind being a little more specific?... [...] > > The easiest way to learn about > > EMP is to find the International TESLA society web site and interpret the > > information there. > > Some of the best sources are ECM & EECM texts/sites. > > While it is a good source of technical info it does take a bull-shit > detector set to full to sift through all the other detritis the ITS wallows > in. Space aliens, hollow earth, over-unity power, etc. Ham radio operators have been dealing with this issue for years. There's a lot of (mostly anectodotal) stories of mobile operators keying up their rigs and having either their own or neighbouring cars misfiring or dieing. Shielded ignition cables seem to fix things (though they are actually bought to prevent ignition noise from getting into the radio, not the other way around). Ham operators can use *much* more powerful transmitters than CB or cell phones - my own transceiver puts out 50 watts, but some go a lot higher. It's fairly common for hams to 'test' a prospective car purchase by waving an HT over the engine while transmitting, to see if it has a problem. I suspect that it would be quite possible to build an EMP gun to kill most running cars, but it would also kill anyone with a pacemaker. I'm more worried about the current trend towards placing remotely controlled electronics in cars. Already, one US manufacturer offers as an option a satellite reciever which (among other things) can unlock the car remotely if you lock it in the car accidentally. I have no idea how much authentication is required for such a request, but I'm sure car theives are looking into it. To defend against this, I expect next years model will also allow the car to be turned off by remote control, or turn on a tracking device. The popular 'Lojak' car tracking system has similar civil liberties issues. I understand that the car owner has no control over it's activation, can't disable it, and there is no indication that it is in operation.Apparently all the "authorities" need to turn it on is the VIN. Peter Trei N1MNV

2 1

Re: Project: a standard cell random number generator
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:50 PM 9/20/95, John Gilmore wrote: >Software-generated random numbers are likely to be of poor quality. >There just isn't that much true randomness visible to computers. >Several ways to build good hardware random number generators are >known. But before hardware random number generators can be >incorporated into common desktop computers, someone will have to put >them into a small fraction of a chip. Essentially, to have good market penetration, this means building a small hardware random number generator into the Pentium, and a few other popular processors. Building it into a separate chip is ineffective, as chip counts are going down on motherboards. (Some may quibble, but clearly about 60-80% of the market is now x86-based, with motherboards supplied by a limited number of companies, and with "chipsets" like the Triton.) What would it take to convince Intel, then, to devote resources to put a HRNG module on, say, future versions of the Pentium, Pentium Pro (P6), etc.? A lot, I'd say. First, Intel will ask what products would gain from _some_ hardware platforms having HRNG when the majority will not. (This is important, because it means that as long as there are vast numbers of 486-, Pentium-, SPARC-, MIPS-, 68K-, and PPC-based systems out there that DON'T have hardware random number generators, then Netscape and other suppliers of software CANNOT COUNT ON THE HRNG. This is an important point: a hardware RNG standard will take many years to percolate into the installed base and reach a level of penetration where even 30% of all machines are equipped with HRNG modules. In the meantime, Netscape and everyone else has to come up with solutions which fit the existing and nearterm-available machines. Second, how much extra will customers pay? Even if the area of the HRNG is less than 1% of the total, design resources are consumed and potential reliability and liablility issues arise. (Liability is problematic precisely because the HRNG is nondeterministic, and some chips are likely to be "more random" (which is "good") than others which are "less random" (which is "bad"). Imagine a customer having a chip which he finds out produces very little entropy, for technical/manufacturing reasons. >You probably can't build a hardware random number generator out of >existing "gate array" gates or "standard cell" cells, because all the >existing gates and cells are designed to behave completely >predictably! It will take designing a new circuit structure. You probably can, actually. CMOS and BiCMOS have all sorts of structures in which threshold voltages can be measured. DRAM arrays have various seemingly-random (*) discharge characteristics. Zener diodes can be built in any of these technologies. At small enough structural levels, such as we are now seeing at the .35 micron level and below, noise is omnipresent, and is dealt with in various ways. Thus, using the noise is not so difficult. (* The various charge/discharge characteristics are actually not random, of course, and are reproducible. But with care they can be used to increase the entropy of other soources. Care must be taken.) >Do we know any solid state physics / circuit design experts who think >this might be a fun thing to do? I bet you could get a paper out of >it. And probably improve the world a few years later, when companies >used your paper to close another hole in their computer security. I'm skeptical for the reasons given above. Even starting today, far too long to get enough out there. (Far-future thinkers will say, "Then let's start now," but it still is not true that companies like Netscape or Verisign will use such an invention to close another hole...they could only close the hole for the customers who had the HRNG-equipped machines, and this is not likely to be enough for quite some time. As John knows, but others may not, I worked on random noise effects in devices at Intel. A co-worker (now President of IC Works, Ilbok Lee) and I developed a hardware random number generator based on very low level radiation sources, using an effect I discovered. We tried to get a patent on it, in 1978, but there was no interest by Intel. Personally, I think that "software + user actions + environment stuff" can generate vast amounts of usable entropy, especially if a user lets it accumulate immediately prior to generating crypto material. * Software -- the standard cryptographic hash functions to "mix" bits even further. * User Actions -- mouse movements, keyboard timing, microphone noise, etc. * Environmental Stuff -- measurement of disk access timings, in milliseconds, amount of free blocks, Ethernet packet stuff, etc. (This may or may not be good for more than a few bits per second, but can be accumulated for several minutes or hours.) Any of these has various weaknesses and points of attack. But let's face it, would Golberg and Wagner have been able to crack Netscape if the PRNG had used some mouse swirling, some random keyboard pounding, some disk access measurements, and had then hashed this with a noninvertible hash function? I think not. This approach has the benefit of working almost immediately, without special dongles on the back of machines or of convincing Intel and Motorola to add special functions (which would take years to effectively penetrate the market). --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

2 1

Re: Prayer to A.M. Turing
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back wrote: >Monty Cantain writes: >> Oh Lord Turing, God of Messages and Pathways, please reduce the >> latency time of the remailer network! Please accept this humble >> offering: 10110AlanMathisonTuring8ef2b1912670b51 > >Your email to Lord Turing may bounce, your hashcash postage doesn't >collide: > >% ashcash AlanMathisonTuring 10110AlanMathisonTuring8ef2b1912670b51 >collision: 0 bits >% Add an "f". AMT

2 1

Re: MIME
by shields＠tembel.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >I think that it must be the content-type that is causing problems, > > Yes, I agree. Make it something like ASCII text But it's not text/plain. It's PGP'ed text/plain. The only way to indicate this in MIME is with a content-type. (Yes, they're working on a general way to encapsulate encryption.) Fine, I'll just leave mail to the list unsigned. -- Shields.

1 0

Re: Please send me SSL problems...
by herbs＠interlog.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 18:18 1995.09.20 -0400, Ian Goldberg wrote: >In article <199509201004.DAA23933(a)ammodump.mcom.com>, >Jeff Weinstein <jsw(a)netscape.com> wrote: >> >> I'd just like to let all cypherpunks know that I'm really interested in >>getting any feedback you might have about security problems with Netscape >>products. I'm particularly interested in bugs in the our implementation >>of SSL, and problems in the protocol that are not addressed in SSL 3.0. > >Well, if you'd release Netscape source, we could check its >implementation... :-) > > - Ian Mmm... sounds like they want some free consulting. :-) (BTW, Ian, you're at UofW? I thought your original 'discovery' email of three days ago had a berkeley.edu address on it... anyway, if you are a UofW'er, hello from a fellow Waterloo math/cs grad!) Herb ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Herb Sutter 2228 Urwin, Suite 102 voice (416) 618-0184 Connected Object Solutions Oakville ON Canada L6L 2T2 fax (905) 847-6019

1 0

CDT Policy Post 3.13 - New FBI Crypto Bill To Force Key Recovery
by Jonah Seiger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _____ _____ _______ / ____| __ \__ __| ____ ___ ____ __ | | | | | | | | / __ \____ / (_)______ __ / __ \____ _____/ /_ | | | | | | | | / /_/ / __ \/ / / ___/ / / / / /_/ / __ \/ ___/ __/ | |____| |__| | | | / ____/ /_/ / / / /__/ /_/ / / ____/ /_/ (__ ) /_ \_____|_____/ |_| /_/ \____/_/_/\___/\__, / /_/ \____/____/\__/ The Center for Democracy and Technology /____/ Volume 3, Number 13 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A briefing on public policy issues affecting civil liberties online ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CDT POLICY POST Volume 3, Number 13 September 8, 1997 CONTENTS: (1) New FBI Draft Crypto Bill Would Force Mandatory Key Recovery (2) Text of FBI Proposal (3) What You Can Do (4) How to Subscribe/Unsubscribe (5) About CDT, contacting us ** This document may be redistributed freely with this banner intact ** Excerpts may be re-posted with permission of <editor(a)cdt.org> ** This document looks best when viewed in COURIER font ** _____________________________________________________________________________ (1) NEW FBI DRAFT ENCRYPTION LEGISLATION WOULD IMPOSE MANDATORY KEY RECOVERY In its most audacious crypto proposal yet, the FBI is circulating on Capitol Hill legislation to impose full domestic controls on the manufacture and use of encryption. The FBI is seeking support for its proposal among two crucial House Committees preparing to consider encryption legislation this week. The text of the key section of the FBI draft is attached below. The FBI draft would take two extraordinary steps. It would prohibit the manufacture, sale, import or distribution within the United States of any encryption product unless it contains a feature that would create a spare key or some other trap door allowing "immediate" decryption of any user's messages or files without the user's knowledge. In addition, it would require all network service providers that offer encryption products or services to their customers to ensure that all messages using such encryption can be immediately decrypted without the knowledge of the customer. This would apply to telephone companies and to online service providers such as America Online and Prodigy. In the FBI draft, the "key recovery capability" could be activated by the purchaser or end user. But requiring that such a capability be installed in all domestic communications networks and encryption products would be the critical step in enabling a national surveillance infrastructure. The proposal requires the Attorney General to set standards for what are and are not acceptable encryption products. The proposal's requirement of "immediate" decryption would seem to seriously limit the options available to encryption manufacturers seeking approval of their products. While export of encryption products from the United States has long been restricted, there have never been controls on the manufacture, distribution, or use of encryption within the United States. Pending before the House Intelligence and National Security Committees is the Security and Freedom through Encryption Act (SAFE, HR 695), sponsored by Rep. Goodlatte (R-VA), which would lift current export controls on encryption technology. The Goodlatte bill has already been reported favorably by the House Judiciary and International Relations Committees. The House National Security Committee is scheduled to consider HR 695 on Tuesday, September 9. The House Intelligence Committee has scheduled its vote for September 11. Members of both committees are expected to consider the FBI draft as a substitute to the SAFE bill. This FBI proposal represents a major turn-around for the Clinton Administration, which has denied since its first year that it was seeking domestic controls on encryption. The FBI proposal is an attempted end run around the Constitution. By creating an avenue for immediate access to sensitive decryption keys without the knowledge of the user, the proposal denies users the notice that is a central element of the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Just this past April, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the Fourth Amendment normally requires the government to advise the target of a search and seizure that the search is being conducted. Forcing U.S. citizens and companies to adopt so-called key recovery systems poses serious security risks, especially when the systems can be accessed without the knowledge of the users. A recent study by 11 cryptography and computer security experts concluded that such key recovery systems would be costly and ultimately insecure (see http://www.crypto.com/key_study) CDT executive director Jerry Berman said of the latest proposal, "This is not the first step towards the surveillance society. It *is* the surveillance society." ______________________________________________________________________________ (2) TEXT OF MANDATORY KEY RECOVERY SECTION OF FBI DRAFT LEGISLATION (From FBI "Technical Assistance Draft" Dated August 28, 1997) SEC. 105. PUBLIC ENCRYPTION PRODUCTS AND SERVICES (a) As of January 1, 1999, public network service providers offering encryption products or encryption services shall ensure that such products or services enable the immediate decryption of communications or electronic information encrypted by such products or services on the public network, upon receipt of a court order, warrant, or certification, pursuant to section 106, without the knowledge or cooperation of the person using such encryption products or services. (b) As of January 1, 1999, it shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture for sale or distribution within the U.S., distribute within the U.S., sell within the U.S., or import into the U.S. any product that can be used to encrypt communications or electronic information, unless that product - (1) includes features, such as key recovery, trusted third party compatibility or other means, that (A) permit immediate decryption upon receipt of decryption information by an authorized party without the knowledge or cooperation of the person using such encryption product; and (B) is either enabled at the time of manufacture, distribution, sale, or import, or may be enabled by the purchaser or end user; or (2) can be used only on systems or networks that include features, such as key recovery, trusted third party compatibility or other means, that permit immediate decryption by an authorized party without the knowledge or cooperation of the person using such encryption product. (c) (1) Within 180 days of the enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall publish in the Federal Register functional criteria for complying with the decryption requirements set forth in this section. (2) Within 180 days of the enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall promulgate procedures by which data network service providers and encryption product manufacturers, sellers, re-sellers, distributors, and importers may obtain advisory opinions as to whether a decryption method will meet the requirements of this section. (3) Nothing in this Act or any other law shall be construed as requiring the implementation of any particular decryption method in order to satisfy the requirements of paragraphs (a) or (b) of this section. ______________________________________________________________________________ (3) WHAT YOU CAN I DO TO HELP? Are you concerned about protecting privacy and security in the information age? Curious what your Member of Congress thinks about the issue? Adopt Your Legislator! Visit http://www.crypto.com/adopt for details You will recieve customized alerts with news you can use, inlcuding the latest information on internet-related issues, the views of your Representative and Senators, and contact information to help you ensure your voice is heard in the ongoing debate over the future of the Information Age. Visit http://www.cdt.org/crypto or http://www.crypto.com/ for detailed background information on the encryption policy reform debate, including the text of various legislative proposals, analysis, and other information. _____________________________________________________________________________ (4) SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Be sure you are up to date on the latest public policy issues affecting civil liberties online and how they will affect you! Subscribe to the CDT Policy Post news distribution list. CDT Policy Posts, the regular news publication of the Center For Democracy and Technology, are received by more than 13,000 Internet users, industry leaders, policy makers and activists, and have become the leading source for information about critical free speech and privacy issues affecting the Internet and other interactive communications media. To subscribe to CDT's Policy Post list, send mail to policy-posts-request(a)cdt.org with a subject: subscribe policy-posts If you ever wish to remove yourself from the list, send mail to the above address with a subject of: unsubscribe policy-posts _____________________________________________________________________________ (5) ABOUT THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY/CONTACTING US The Center for Democracy and Technology is a non-profit public interest organization based in Washington, DC. The Center's mission is to develop and advocate public policies that advance democratic values and constitutional civil liberties in new computer and communications technologies. Contacting us: General information: info(a)cdt.org World Wide Web: URL:http://www.cdt.org/ FTP URL:ftp://ftp.cdt.org/pub/cdt/ Snail Mail: The Center for Democracy and Technology 1634 Eye Street NW * Suite 1100 * Washington, DC 20006 (v) +1.202.637.9800 * (f) +1.202.637.0968 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- End Policy Post 3.13 09/08/97 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Re: Security Flaw Is Discovered In Software Used in Shopping
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Wed, 20 Sep 1995 10:47:24 -0400 (EDT) From: Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb(a)nsb.fv.com> To: www-buyinfo(a)allegra.att.com Subject: Re: Security Flaw Is Discovered In Software Used in Shopping Without belaboring the point too much, I think there are a few conclusions that really ought to be drawn: -- The world has never seen unbreakable encryption software, and almost certainly never will. Nothing that human beings ever build is perfect. -- Any encryption-based scheme is only as strong as its weakest link. Generally, you don't know what the weakest link will turn out to be. -- Basing a global financial infrastructure on the unbreakability of a certain algorithm or program is at best imprudent. Bear in mind that people as well respected as Dr. Adelman -- the "A" in RSA -- are hard at work trying to figure out how, for example, to use massive parallelism to break the basic algorithms of public key cryptography. -- Keeping sensitive financial information completely off the net is always best, whether or not you are using encryption. For information on a safe, non-cryptographic alternative that has been fully operational for nearly a year, with over 30,000 paying customers, a growth rate featuring a six week doubling period, and NO break-ins to date, check out http://www.fv.com. -- Nathaniel -------- Nathaniel S. Borenstein <nsb(a)fv.com> | When privacy is outlawed, Chief Scientist, First Virtual Holdings | only outlaws will have privacy! FAQ & PGP key: nsb+faq(a)nsb.fv.com | SUPPORT THE ZIMMERMANN DEFENSE FUND! ---VIRTUAL YELLOW RIBBON-->> zldf(a)clark.net <http://www.netresponse.com/zldf> --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<

4 4

Re: FCPUNX:Show Me the Warheads!
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:03 PM -0700 9/4/97, Mike Duvos wrote: >>In an interview to be aired on "60 Minutes" this Sunday, Alexandr >>Lebed, former Russian National Security Advisor, will reveal that >>his country has lost track of more than 100 nuclear bombs made to >>look like suitcases, and has no idea what happened to them. At 10:13 PM 9/4/97 -0700, Tim May wrote: > Stay away from soft targets (Tel Aviv, Haifa, the ZOG section of Jerusalem, > New York, Washington, and so on--Harbors (e.g., Haifa, NYC) are pretty > likely targets, due to the extreme ease of delivery). But also be prepared > for major disruptions and panic even if you are nowhere near the blast. Relax: Anyone who can afford nukes, probably won't use them without very good reason. By the way, I have noticed that the Israelis have lately taken a considerably more conciliatory attitude towards non state entitities. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

8 9

I see the Wells Fargo Wagon it's a-comin down...
by Damaged Justice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

EU official proposes global Internet charter Copyright © 1997 Nando.net Copyright © 1997 Reuter Information Service BRUSSELS, Belgium (September 8, 1997 11:21 a.m. EDT) - The top telecommunications official of the European Union called Monday for an international charter to regulate the Internet and other electronic networks. EU Commissioner Martin Bangemann, in a speech prepared for a telecommunications conference in Geneva, said the charter should deal with questions such as technical standards, illegal content, licenses, encryption and data privacy. "The current situation may lead to the adoption of isolated global rules with different countries signing up to different rules agreed under the auspices of different international organizations," the German commissioner said. "An international charter would provide a suitable answer." The text of the speech was distributed in Brussels. Bangemann said industry should lead the effort to draw up a charter, which would be based mostly on self-regulation and mutual recognition of national licenses. "Its role would not be to impose detailed rules, except in particular circumstances (child pornography, terrorist networks)," he said. The charter would recognize existing pacts negotiated within the World Trade Organization and World Intellectual Property Organization and draw on principles agreed by other bodies such as the Group of Seven top industrial countries, he said.

1 0

Re: USA Today on Fear of Credit Cards over Net
by liberty＠gate.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- <snip> > How much do PC users trust: > > Automatic teller machines 77% > Banking by phone 62% > Banking by computer 57% > Using a credit card or calling > card at a public phone 57% > Writing a credit-card number on > a catalog order form 43% > Sending a credit-card number to > a commercial on-line service 34% > Giving a credit-card number > over the phone 31% > Sending a credit-card number > over the Internet 5% > > (margin of error = +/- 4.7%) <snip> Pity they didn't ask about, "Tossing a credit card slip/carbon in the garbage." Dumpster-diving is still an effective, lo-tech attack. JMR -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Freedom isn't Freeh iQCVAwUBMGAxQW1lp8bpvW01AQEfmwP9GfEzhoBWuTNHvxZ7dMvMV7K/cypT0XmO kLqAAtPHyhS3PxmwNiT0G4tquU9QHw2cQ5Rj6IAqR7Fbuvtt1TW2Kora9RsXLp5L 75Zw63/wrsnI20qe+Pnf6FEG0IcjLg4vrezhAGYAC3zSdTpSW4cuqdzId6qeTlvM 4gg2Z9UGOrA= =ReYK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Regards, Jim Ray "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." -- James Baldwin ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PGP key Fingerprint 51 5D A2 C3 92 2C 56 BE 53 2D 9C A1 B3 50 C9 C8 Key id. # E9BD6D35 James Milton Ray <liberty(a)gate.net> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Help Phil! email zldf(a)clark.net or see http://www.netresponse.com/zldf _______________________________________________________________________

3 2

Re: Encryption algorithms used in PrivaSoft (fwd)
by David Van Wie 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David Clavadetscher of PrivaSoft writes: > At this time our crypto engine is patented and proprietary. Ian Goldberg writes: > Waitasec... I was under the impression that if you patented it, you had to > reveal it. That's why RC4 isn't patented (it used to be a trade secret). Many technologies have both patented parts and trade secret parts. Often, companies will maintain information that is in patent applications as trade secret until they are granted. I guess I should say _if_ they are granted! After a patent is granted, it is usually a good idea to also maintain some trade secrets in your products -- since trade secrets never "expire," unlike patents. If the patent isn't granted, you still have the option of treating the contents as an intellectual property under trade secret protection. dvw

2 1

netscape bug
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

clearly the netscape engineers did not practice "safe crypto programming", but I question the seriousness of the crack. none of the articles mention that the cracker must have login access to the computer that the random numbers are generated on. is this true? does the code require knowledge of the PID etc. that can only be obtained by a login to the system that the netscape session is running on? if this is true (i.e. login access required) this bug is by far not as serious as some of the hyperbole is suggesting. I agree it is still very insecure but the most dangerous crypto bugs are those where you can determine keys from data alone.. physical penetration into a machine is another level of security.. furthermore, I would like to commend Netscape for their fast response to the problem and apparent commitment to establishing safeguards that avoid it in the future. cypherpunks have an easy time ridiculing someone who slit their throat on writing some crypto functions, but geez, cut them some slack: crypto stuff has so many pitfalls and bugaboos that even the world-class experts make mistakes. where else can not properly "burning" stack registers (function parameters) and environment variables be considered "lethal"??? PGP errors have been reported on numerous occasions, some in the randomizer code. do people call for Zimmermann's head on a stick and call him "incompetent"? often when cryptographers say something is "broken" it can still mean that it is not necessarily unsafe in practice. there are many shades of "broken", some requiring a Cray and other's requiring a PC. I am really surprised how much people here consider "broken is broken". this is only the extreme theoretical perspective. granted I am not advocating that people *not*fix* bad crypto functions, I'm only saying that maybe its not in everyone's best interest to run around and say "the sky is falling" and lambaste companies for minor difficulties.. Netscape is a world class product, and it's *free*. on this cypherpunks list, I have seen no end to the venemous criticisms that people level at *free* products, which IMHO is quite tasteless at times. Netscape has done far more for the cypherpunk cause than many, many companies just by including RC4 in their product. they have taken some heat for their decisions & code, but they are on the front lines of battle. now instead of our vague claims about how the world can benefit from good crypto, how it is immensely valuable and important to cyberspatial financial transactions, to promote the cypherpunk cause, we now have something *popular*, *physical*, and *tangible* to point to: netscape!! this is *not* vaporware. this is not some cpunk saying, "all one needs is [x] algorithm running on [y] network and you have a world class infrastructure". the amount of work to get something like Netscape into the world is quite daunting and herculean. we owe a great debt to netscape and their accomplishments for furthering our own agenda!!! please do not trivialize what they have accomplished!! Netscape is here, it works, and it is cyberspatial crypto that Joe Sixpack can understand and *use*!! it is not a toy remailer, it is not some PGP front end, it is not some mailer script, *this* is the format in which Joe Sixpack will be using crypto in the future, the format which will bring "crypto to the unwashed masses"!! Netscape may very well be the chief vehicle that puts on *concrete pressure* on our government to relax crypto export laws. I see this happening *right now* with them going to a 64 bit key from a 40 bit one, and the world starting to realize the importance of crypto and the idiocy of the export laws. I am really amazed at how few seem to be supporting Netscape here and considering them the *premiere ally* in our current battle. it reminds me of how much people here rant at Microsoft when virtually no other company on the planet could pull off what they make look easy (ah, that's another story I've filled up other posts with). please do *not* take an adversarial relationship with the companies who are helping advance the cutting edge of cyberspace!! do *not* ridicule them. rather, help them to understand their problems. I think you will find that most companies are *not* hostile to improving their software, and will readily admit it when it needs fixing (intel has been humbled by their pentium glitch, and I doubt any company again will ever be so obstinate and belligerent..) . I am willing to bet that the netscape bug would have been fixed quickly if it had been quietly brought to their attention, without the blaring media lights (I enjoy the media circus as much as the next guy, but on the other hand, doing some things quietly may actually advance the cypherpunk cause further than by making a noisy hullaballoo in cyberspace). once again I commend Netscape for their fine software and willingness to perfect it. netscape is at the cutting edge of advancing key cyberspace technologies and it is not surprising that they make some minor mistakes with the code in these early phases. cyberspace is very young!! give designers a bit of time to get it right. be patient!! do not accuse them of incompetence!! netscape is tens of thousands of lines of world-class code. only in programming can a few moments of total, rapt attention lead to bugs that get blared on the front page of new york times and affect your stock price!! good lord, give the guys a break. cpunks: when Netscape has some serious competitors, they will get their act together. but at the moment they are the only game in town, and it will pay off to be nice to them, and try to support them, instead of kicking them in the teeth and wringing them every time they make a mistake. few in the world are as knowledgeable or paranoid as we are about security, and its going to be a gradual process to get to even a fraction of the expertise here penetrating the mainstream software industry. be patient!! -- P.M. notes that anywhere there is a data-driven buffer overflow (which he suspects are all over netscape) he can get code to execute anything he wants. this reminds me of the Morris internet worm that ran exactly the same way. it used a bug in the finger demon that caused a string buffer overwrite (via strcpy, instead of strncpy) to execute customized code. my question: I have not seen the specifics of how this works. does this require specialized knowledge of the native machine language on the host machine? or is it just used to cause something like a core dump to get a command line or something like that? --Vlad Nuri

3 2

No Subject
by Mix 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jesus had 3 nipples. (this has been proven to be true)

1 0

Netscape Servers too ? (forwarded message from Marc VanHeyningen)
by Laurent Demailly 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) ------- From: marcvh(a)spry.com (Marc VanHeyningen) To: Wayne Wilson <wwilson(a)umich.edu> Cc: Kazuma Andoh <andoh(a)nikkeibp.co.jp>, www-security(a)ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: Re: What's the netscape problem Date: Wed, 20 Sep 1995 07:51:47 -0700 [...] > http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/random_seed_security.html The interesting part of this article is the discussion of random seed weaknesses on the *server* side. If true, this means anybody could use the random-seed hole to reverse engineer the process by which the server's private key information was generated and break that keypair with much, much much less effort than would normally be needed to factor a 512-bit RSA key. (Note that I'm not entirely sure Netscape's server uses 512 bit RSA keys, since the documentation, technical data sheets, and generation process don't give any clue about what key size is being used. Guess they don't want customers worrying their pretty little heads about it.) This would mean merely getting a fixed server would be insufficient; every Netscape server user would need to generate a new keypair, get a new Verisign certificate, and revoke the old one. (Oops, wait, there's no way to revoke the old one. I guess you just have to hope nobody does this before all those certificates expire.) - - Marc ------- end ------- dl -- Laurent Demailly * http://hplyot.obspm.fr/~dl/ * Linux|PGP|Gnu|Tcl|... Freedom Prime#1: cent cinq mille cent cinq milliards cent cinq mille cent soixante sept smuggle nuclear North Korea SDI cracking Mossad DES

1 0

Re: Java Source for Encryption...
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:34 PM 9/8/97 -0400, Peter Wayner wrote, to coderpunks: >Is anyone giving away Java source code for public-key encryption? What evil lurks in the heart of the Internet? AltaVista Knows.... Besides www.systemics.com, which has free Java crypto there's also www.baltimore.ie which has commercial Java crypto as well as some free downloadware. However, Baltimore's web pages also talk about how they're the winner of the EuroTrust TTP/CA development contract. Sigh.

1 0

netscape's response
by sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

" With this knowledge, an experienced computer programmer could decrypt messages sent by Netscape Navigator to other computers in a few hours of computation time." Excuse me? A few hours? Try 25 seconds?? "Netscape has also begun to engage an external group of world-class security experts who will review our solution to this problem before it is sent to customers." A group which offered to review the first version, but Netscape refused. From their release it looks like they aren't finding a better source of entropy, but just using *more* sources of entropy. Doesn't mean that the entropy is good. A T-shirt to the first person to decompile the new Seed code and post the sources of "entropy" used. (See http://www.c2.org/hacknetscape for general [not written in stone] guidelines regarding t-shirt awards) -- sameer Voice: 510-601-9777 Community ConneXion FAX: 510-601-9734 An Internet Privacy Provider Dialin: 510-658-6376 http://www.c2.org (or login as "guest") sameer(a)c2.org

8 12

AOL monitoring
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

hello, apparently the recent FBI sting happened with the cooperation of AOL, which allowed the FBI to monitor downloads.. here's some info to test if you are being monitored on AOL ------- Forwarded Message Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 14:47:38 -0400 To: snet-l(a)world.std.com From: Charles Zeps <czeps(a)icis.on.ca> Subject: How to find out if you are sniffed at AOL > America Online Opens Private E-mail to Federal Sting > (c) 1995 N.Y. Times News Service > >(14 Sept. 1995 ) Responding to court orders related to a >nationwide crackdown on the electronic transmission of child pornography, >America Online, the nation's largest information service, gave law >enforcement agents access to the private electronic mailboxes of an unknown >number of its subscribers, company officials confirmed Thursday. From: Eric Muetterties <ericm3(a)ix.netcom.com> All you America online users would be wise to check out your software...(WINDOWS) Use a file viewer that will allow you to view in hexadecimal.Or use the DOSSHELL.EXE program in your DOS directory and use the menu to VIEW file contents Find your Aonline directory and find the directory marked IDB. This should have two files marked with your screen name and a suffix of either .arh or .pnd (eg. ericmuette.arh) With the file loaded in the viewer you will see the hex dump of these files. In the side pane will be the equivalent ascII of the hexadecimal dump (in laymans terms... if there is text you will recognize it...) Use PAGE DOWN to move down through the files.... soon you will recognize the first files you downloaded and references to where you were on the internet and what directory you saved the file to. Make these files READ ONLY with the file attributes menu in your file manager and they can not use this facility../ You will get an error message when you first start up ("XFER ERROR - - - could not create database") Click on "OK" and program will continue. Then when program gives you messages when you try to save to disk or download something just click on "IGNORE" till program continues (usually 3 times). When they realize everyone is defeating this they can easily come up with a more covert way of tracking you but in the meantime... ... better to change to another provider... You will be amazed at your freinds expressions when you get on their computer and tell them what they have downloaded. If you view the files in the TOOLS directory , at the end of the files you will find the internal names for these programs such as "Internal DAtabase" , ETC. !!! Have fun... Big Bro is here in a BIG WAY... MIND YOUR P's and Q's on the NET !!! E. Muetterties If you can't figure out how to do this email me with what is in your "IDB" directory and I'll tell you which files to view. ericm3(a)ix.netcom.com Linda Thompson American Justice Federation Home of AEN News and "Waco, the Big Lie" "America Under Siege" 3850 S. Emerson Ave. Indianapolis, IN 46203 Telephone: (317) 780-5200 Fax: (317) 780-5209 Internet: lindat(a)iquest.net "When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril." Harry Truman

5 5

Info please
by davewww 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

davewww(a)fastlane.net

2 1