December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Mail to mail.cypherpunks "newsgroup" echoes to list
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have been getting a load of duplicate mail from this group; not all messages are duplicated, only those cc'd to mail.cypherpunks as well as sent to the toad.com address. I don't know if this is a gateway to a local newsgroup or what, but I wish the duplication would stop. Thank you. A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | mfroomki(a)umiami.ir.miami.edu U. Miami School of Law | P.O. Box 248087 | It's hot here. And humid. Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | See (experimentally & erratically) http://viper.law.miami.edu/~mfroomki ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 03 Sep 1995 08:38:54 -0600 From: Piete Brooks <Piete.Brooks(a)cl.cam.ac.uk> To: lyal collins <lyalc(a)ozemail.com.au> Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com, Piete.Brooks(a)cl.cam.ac.uk Newgroups: mail.cypherpunks Subject: Re: A bold ssl idea ? > I understand that setting up RC4 keys is slower that testing for the correct > key (I may have misuderstood this bit). For pure RC4, Yes. However, SSL is not pure RC4. > Is it considered practical to modify the brutessl code to have multiple > message data, and test each against a key from allocated key space ? You are the third person I've heard think of this. [ The first did quite a lot of calculations before spotting the problem ! ] > If so, this may mean that perhaps 3 message can be tested against a single > in the time two single keys could be tested against one message. Well, the original suggestion I heard was to try 64K at a time :-))

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The Sacco & Vancetti anniversary
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On August 23, 1927, Niccola Sacco and Bartholomeo Vancetti were murdered by the USD in Massachussetts. Please have some beer/pot in their memory (or kill a fed, or mailbomb Kent Crispin, or whatever you find fitting). I'll be away from the 'net for the next few days. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Looking for NII IP "White Paper"...
by Brian A. LaMacchia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

According to an article in Sunday's _Washington Post_ the final draft of the "Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure" report is going to be released Tuesday morning. You may recall the premilinary draft of this report, a.k.a. the "Green Paper", and its proposed changes to U.S. Copyright Law. Does anyone on the list have a copy of the final draft/"White Paper"? The administration is evidently keeping it under pretty tight wraps, probably because of the intense criticism the Green Paper received. Personally, I expect the White Paper to be just as bad. --bal References: The Green Paper/Preliminary Draft is available at: http://www.uspto.gov/niiip.html Pam Samuelson's critique, which appeared in _Communications of the ACM_ and which you should definitely read, is available at: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/6095/articles/samuelson-nii-cacm-dec94.html

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WEB pointers for NIS&T Key Escrow meeting
by pfarrell＠isse.gmu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To save list bandwidth, I've put the agenda, attendee list, and the three discussion topic papers for this week's Key Escrow meeting on my web. url: http://www.isse.gmu.edu/~pfarrell/nistmeeting.html I'll add anything else I get from NIS&T, and any pointers folks send my way. Pat Pat Farrell grad student http://www.isse.gmu.edu/students/pfarrell Infor. Systems and Software Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP key available via finger or request #include standard.disclaimer

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Soon the neighbor's dog will be in the act...(Was Re: book talktoday)
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-PGP-Key: <http://www1.shore.net/~sable/info/rltkey.htm> X-Sender: rodney(a)pop3.pn.com Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 09:25:50 -0400 To: dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu From: Rodney Thayer <rodney(a)sabletech.com> Subject: book talk today Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Rodney Thayer <rodney(a)sabletech.com> I was in SoftPro in Burlington (the bookstore) last night and saw they are having an "Internet Cryptography Seminar" today at 6pm, "featuring Dr. Richard E. Smith, author of "Internet Cryptography". I wonder if he'll be digitally signing copies of the book :-) For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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Re: Dumb Question: PGPfone over Appletalk
by Richard.Johnson＠Colorado.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Can someone tell me how to run PGPfone over Appletalk ? The >documentation says that support has been added for this release, and >there's a preferences box to check to use it, but there's no information >I can find in the documentation on how to initiate a call over >Appletalk.. it just says to enter a telephone number to dial. If I >press 'Connect' without entering anything it hangs up the Mac. > >How do I tell it which machine I want to connect to ? > > Mark "Don't know much about Macs" Grant My guess is that you're on a network with multiple AppleTalk zones. The "PGPfone 1.0b4 README" file mentions a known bug that causes PGPfone to freeze when trying to bring up its AppleTalk Browser. The Read Me file then goes on to explain how to connect anyway. Be sure to use a semi-colon, not a colon, between the zone name and the macintosh name... Richard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMEn+T/obez3wRbTBAQHG7gP+J8It6kZTRYhte2ffTSzflQB8ff14a2pR VR81PD0HIjE5cyNTrAlA6FdVGguy21BIK+tUz5rmQBRuZP46OWynBqk4y551M+fg JjnEOk2jXNBZDFdwT9fy5hWc3g38os6vto5/4vsj5Vhw0+6EoVojzJ8AU99ibG7z pKnPhQnpISI= =8lQJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: The Real Bell Issue / Re: Bell, etc
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Duncan Frissell wrote: > He could have been aggressive and fought instead of wimping out. Lots of > people have faced much more serious crimes and won. It's not like Jim had > anything better to do. The fact of the matter is, none of us know what Jim knows, and what he knows is likely only what his government appointed schill has told him. I recall Vin Suprynowicz mentioning a prominent attorney contacting Bell's attorney in an effort to help, and receiving no reply. Neither do we know if Bell has merely decided that he should concede the legal ground in order to be able to pursue the issue later, on turf that suits him better. > In such cases, an aggressive show of strength of character is best. Weakness > invites oppression. We have already seen the results of Tim McVeigh wanting his government schill replaced--a big FUCK YOU. McVeigh's problem is not weakness, but lack of knowledge about the legal system and the quality of his legal representation. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that the government already has lawyers in place whose job thus far has been to gain McVeigh's trust, so that they can screw up his appeals, as well. TruthMonger

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ASN.1 and Kerberos version 5
by jis＠mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Perry E. Metzger writes: >I've heard people associated with the decision to use ASN.1 in >Kerberos V say it was a mistake. Frankly, I think ASN.1 is a blight >which should be exterminated from the planet. I'll say it. I was the person who pushed for the use of ASN.1 in Kerberos version 5. I had this disease at the time that made me think that ASN.1 was a good idea. I got better, unfortunately we have been living with the results of my braino for quite some time now... poor Ted. However, the problem with ASN.1 isn't its waste of space (which actually isn't that bad for a mechanism for encoding arbitrary objects). The problem is that it is the product of a standards making process that didn't (and doesn't) value interoperability. Adherence to the ISO specifications does not guarantee interoperation. Instead regional "workshops" negotiate aspects of implementations to obtain interoperation. What does this mean for ASN.1? It means that the definition of ASN.1 is a bit abstract (as its name implies). Problems result when two organizations (say MIT and OSF!) attempt to implement from the specification in ASN.1 but use different ASN.1 compilers and things then don't work. Arguments then ensue about whose compiler (or manually written parsing code) is "correct" in terms of doing the right thing with ASN.1. This is particularly so when using DER (for Distinquished Encoding Rules) which is itself an after-thought added to ASN.1 later in the process. It is required in order to verify digital signatures (which have to be computed on the "encoded" form of an object because there is no good way to calculate a signature on an "abstract" object). If the Kerberos specification said: "pub this byte here and that one there" none of these arguments and problems would happen. -Jeff -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMEiaf8UtR20Nv5BtAQFzNAP/Q/LuIMbxAPAp64Kn2PSPd600TYlRAUJh QbsuL/iRhGXWrxSjsFzkcr6e3sIpSFggxglFU38TJT/DG2AD8MOid3Uj4pRJVbyo z7Au0Vp1NiotmRBHq2udItzJ7LLPM0j38FHQenqPs9mkX2Cq5kVgGUBO94HabEuE S9XPCgV8E1Q= =kTyw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Socio-Economic Cults (Re: CypherPunk Cults)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

gturk wrote: >You must be referring to the Cult of Redistribution. Tis true that as these accusatory options for blaming others are displayed here, it becomes hard to tell who's potshotting from what shifting position to gain better fire lines at friend and foe and own foot. As the Bastiat quote shows, the 19th century is a fount of apologies for wizened rapacity, as are those stuck in that time warp of heyday national and indiivudal self-destruction in the cause of unshakeable rigteousness, an affliction far from cured in nations and individuals wanting to be Number One while totally whacked out on ... take your pick from the socio-politico-econo bazaar, most of which derives from the days of pre-Bastiat and now recycled by crazy-lazy-minded 20th century rip-offers of the insecurely rich. Will evolution in action ever kick in, or will the promise of it, like dreams of social justice and faith in the constitution and arms, forever cheat the maniacally despairing with so few other choices for peace of mind? Are there any reliable prefabricated alternatives from history, from today, to self-imposed sheepledom of your sole invention? Now, to move on to the day's news: Is Tim going to be kidnapped by a gang of mixed breed cops and ammo merchants, shot instantly and chained in dugout till his loved redeems his maggoty carcass by redistributing his nestegg? That's the topic of the NYT's lead business story today, the need for secret ransom insurance, so secret that it does not make you a free-for-taking target like the usual unwise display of peacockery. Hide it if you got it, hide your lush affiliations too, the poor reporters advise, or the world's scum with nothing else to do but watch and wait are gonna snag your unsmart ass when you least expect it, now as in ages past, unless, to be sure, more scum-world guardians are hired and more big-nuke prayerbooks and ransom policys are arsenaled bedside, 4X, ankle and thigh.

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NIST attendee list
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The dangers of public attendee lists. Some Cypherpunk might match the list against east cost lawyers and break Black Unicorn's nym. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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heart
by Zooko Journeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A million monkeys operating under the pseudonym "Ray Arachelian <sunder(a)sundernet.com>" typed: > > Meethinks (not speaking for Tim) that years under a fascist natzi-like > regime bent on ripping out all out freedoms one by one and confiscating > all things threatening to it would cause any awake person to lose any > compassion for the scum that run our Freeh country. BULL SHIT. This is a cop-out, used by emotionally stunted men to excuse themselves from their solemn responsibility to ethically justify their own actions and to deal fairly with their fellow humans. By reciting mantras to one another emphasizing their sense of having been mistreated and their sense of having _unquestionable_ moral superiority, people in this situation persuade each other to become more and more fanatical in their attitudes, less and less in touch with reality, and less and less compassionate towards the "others" who have been demonized in the process. Note that this process _always_ includes a group of other humans which are demonized in order to serve as a scapegoat and as a concrete focus for the participant's negative emotions. This process is objectively identical to the process experienced by _all_ hate groups, gangs and nationalists. You are standing in the auditorium, Louis Freeh's face is displayed on the screen, interposed with film of jackbooted thugs breaking down your door, and you are screaming wordlessly at him along with all of your brethren during the Two Minutes Hate. THAT should give you pause for thought, Ray. Listen to me: I might take up arms in the trenches next to you someday, if it comes to that. I might murder enemies or civilians in their sleep, if I were convinced that it was the only way to preserve the people and the ideals that I love. I might work to deploy ideas and technologies that threaten to induce social chaos, if I believed that those ideas and technologies were the only way to ensure the blessings of liberty and prosperity for my children. But I will _never_ take one of these actions while intoxicated by a cloud of hatred and self-righteousness. I will _never_ tell myself that I am part of a sacred jihad which absolves me of all guilt, and I will _never_ re-classify my enemies as sub-human in order to justify my treatment of them. So take a fucking BREAK man. Just get up from the computer and go for a fucking walk in the mountains and think about your fucking family and loved ones. Z

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Re: anyone know what this "top secret" code does?
by Tim Magee 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In your message dated Saturday 2, September 1995 : > Does anyone remember the scenario someone suggested awhile back that > hypothesized a scheme by the NSA or other TLAs to encourage the use > of WEAK crypto? It involved spreading a lot of F.U.D. about PGP and > other strong crypto methods, followed by the discovery/leak of a > supposedly "strong" crypto algorithm to replace it. If the YFTLA could diffuse actual source of a method *supposedly* stronger than IDEA and get away with it, could they not equally qell get away with planting their man Zimmermann and having him publish PGP with a cunning trapdoor? Let's see, to lend cred to that though they'd probably have to have him arrested on trumped-up charges and generally harassed ... Many people only THINK they know what cynicism means. Seriously: I've not been round long enough to have a good idea how likely my proposed scenario is. You can all probably tell me things about Z's provenance which blow my little theory sky-high. cheers, tim M. -- "Man is born free, and everywhere he is very reasonable." -- Rousseau (roughly) Tim Magee, e-mail: Tim(a)alia1.demon.co.uk, tel: +44-1225-316785

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LR/SHS src (386 ASM)
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have uploaded a copy of lrsha14.zip to the cypherpunks ftp site. It contains source code for a 32-bit implementation of the Secure Hash Algorithm as well as a Luby-Rackoff/SHA cipher in CFB mode, and a sample Turbo Pascal interface for debugging it, etc. -Rob

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Joel's RSA-t's
by WOOD＠VAX2.ROCKHURST.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > On Josh Osborne's RSA-perl T-shirt venture, > > I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't realise from Joel's > last post to the list that he was taking orders for then. I guess > that's as close to an announcement as he's going to make. I just > checked his netstuff web page, and he's taking orders now! > > Check out: > > http://www.danger.com/ad-perl.html > > (this is referenced from Joel's netstuff page under currently > available items: > > http://www.danger.com/netstuff.html > ) > > From the Joel's web page: > > > DEADLINE TO ORDER: All orders for these shirts must be postmarked by > > June 1, 1995. > > Also my page on perl-rsa is: > > http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/perl-rsa.html > > I'll be away from my mail for the rest of this week, so maybe someone > can post this info to all the crypto groups... > > Adam > -- > > HAVE *YOU* EXPORTED A CRYPTO SYSTEM TODAY? --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/x.html > --rsa--------------------------------8<------------------------------------- > #!/usr/local/bin/perl -s-- -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-in-3-lines-PERL > ($k,$n)=(a)ARGV;$m=unpack(H.$w,$m."\0"x$w),$_=`echo "16do$w 2+4Oi0$d*-^1[d2% > Sa2/d0<X+d*La1=z\U$n%0]SX$k"[$m*]\EszlXx++p|dc`,s/^.|\W//g,print pack('H*' > ,$_)while read(STDIN,$m,($w=2*$d-1+length($n||die"$0 [-d] k n\n")&~1)/2) > -------------------------------------8<------------------------------------- > TRY: echo squeamish ossifrage | rsa -e 3 7537d365 | rsa -d 4e243e33 7537d365 > Has anyone received a shirt from Joel? Or is he ripping people off? Many thanks, ------------------------------------------- | "Computers are boring and slow." | | | | David Wood | | Information Systems Specialist? | | wood(a)vax2.rockhurst.edu | -------------------------------------------

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Re: Find Info You Never Thought Possible..ONLINE!!
by Feanor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Aug 21, 7:56, INFOREVOLUTION wrote: } Subject: Find Info You Never Thought Possible..ONLINE!! > <HTML><PRE><BODY BGCOLOR="#000000"><FONT COLOR="#00FFFF" SIZE=3> > Find The Dirt On The Internet!! > > You will not receive any more correspondence from us!!!!! > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > We have done the research for you!!! With this power tool you can access > information all over the World Wide Web about your employees, friends and > rivals. We give you the access to hundreds of sites that will supply you > with information about DMV records, credit profiles, medical and criminal > records, most anything you would want to know. Wow. Pseudolibertarian spam. Anyone wanna bite, fork the money and report back to us?

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SSL search attacks
by don＠cs.byu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- From: Scott Brickner <sjb(a)austin.ibm.com> >We've identified several forms of "real-world retaliation:" > >1) "Result hoarding" - failure to report a found key >2) "Segment hoarding" - requesting more segments than one can hope to search >3) Denial of service - preventing access to the server >The "random search" method eliminates all three of these at about 37% >higher cost in search time, on the average. I submit that if we >*really* were trying to break something important, we could design a >system which eliminated the first two and adequately limited the third, >but at *much* less cost. > >The problems in the current system were to be expected of a first >attempt. In the future: Only the server assigns segments, only the >assignee may report the status of a segment, and after all segments are >NAKed we know condition 1 has occurred, at which time we start over, >but never assign the same segment to the same searcher. Limit the >number of segments which may be outstanding with one searcher at one >time as a function of work rate. Deploy redundant servers. BEAAAT STATE! Push 'em back.. WAAAAAAY BAAAACK. (relevant comments follow) From: tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) >An interesting question: Is it a valid approach for J. Random User to >"claim" some chunk of keyspace to search? > >If the "reward" of finding the gold buried in the keyspace (a key that >meets the challenge) is high and the cost of claiming the keyspace is low >(or nil), then game theory tells us that some folks will be tempted to >claim a bigger chunk of keyspace than they can possibly process. > >What can be done to reduce this effect? In regard to both messages, I think that with sequentially allocated keyspace an attacker who knows the real key would have trouble getting the right segment unless s/he grabbed a big enough piece. If the search is restarted, we know something's up. Ensuring that nobody gets to search keyspace they searched before would be one improvement. A random (instead of sequential) allocation _by the keyserver_ (out of unallocated piecemeal segments) would also take some work to implement. >On the negative side, ostracize or punish those who bite off more than they >can chew. This approach is fraught with dangers. If the search wraps around to catch the UNACK'ed pieces, this type of oversight will only slow down the actual discovery of the key. Failure to report a found key, though, is a bit different. I would not be opposed to having my program report possible hits, with the server being what discovers if I've found it or not. >On the positive side, let everyone simply attack the keyspace as they see >fit, picking random parts to attack. This should not be "worse" than a >factor of several from a "perfectly coordinated" attack. (I haven't spent >time calculating this, but my intuition is that a random attack, with >overlapping keyspace, is not a lot less efficiently attacked than >attempting to arrange for no overlaps...just based on my mental picture of >dropping line segments randomly on some interval and figuring coverage of >the line segment.) Why not have a random backup-mode, in case someone does mount a denial of service attack. Or imploy a combination of the two modes. The machines running brloop can search sequentially (out of the middle 50%?) and the machines not connected search randomly (out of the outside 50%?). Or, venturing further into the I-wonder-who's-gonna-code-this world, log the random searches for possible conversion to an exhaustive search later. It would be nice to be able to hit the emergency button and switch to random mode, but currently I don't think there's a need to actually use it. Don -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMEN/U8La+QKZS485AQHNcgL+ItlNLYcsIjjlQPQJBxgts66GXPMs3ijb QIcqiAbrg4cq7F9xWNRvZa9LTvw75UUM1+PmItGkSUuqOqvJ9VkzaUp8/Sf5zuDs 5XTlJLVhYa7qQzY4Ov4a3k0ora0SPvKh =wyzo -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- <don(a)cs.byu.edu> fRee cRyPTo! jOin the hUnt or BE tHe PrEY PGP key - http://bert.cs.byu.edu/~don or PubKey servers (0x994b8f39) June 7&14, 1995: 1st amendment repealed. Death threats ALWAYS pgp signed * This user insured by the Smith, Wesson, & Zimmermann insurance company *

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Re: Socio-Economic Cults (Re: CypherPunk Cults)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

William H. Geiger III wrote: > Somthing is seriously wrong when a home owner is more afraid of the > consequences of defending his home than his is from the criminals > attacking it. Policeman: "Sir, I'm calling to notify you that a criminal has broken into your house." Citizen: "Damn. I hope he didn't hurt himself. I forgot to pay my insurance bill this month." Tell me about it...

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pseudonyms & list health
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

P.M. remarked in exasperation a little while ago that he thought that some of the best minds had been lost in list attrition due to high traffic, naming some people who had seemingly dropped from the list (Bill Stewart? Phil Karn?) but what if these people had just stopped subscribing under their clear name? and started using a pseudonym? this brings to light the idea that credibility is hard won, and that it is hard to get, and that people need all the credibility that they can achieve. it seems that virtually all accomplishments are credibility-enhancing, and people only "notch down" their reputation estimations in extreme circumstances. hence, what I am suggesting is that one of the "stable attractors" that TM is always talking about may be a reality in which people pool most of their accomplishments under a single nym. furthermore, they will wish to avoid conflict with other nyms in respect to attribution. isn't this, functionally, the equivalent of the supposed anti-cypherpunk "true names"? now, I'm not suggesting that "if you want to do something in secret, you must have something to hide". (although that seems almost like a tautology to me). but what I am suggesting, is that if you want to get credit, it may pay to pool all your accomplishments under one nym (tracing it to a physical body is a whole separate issue-- the two should not be confused; although the concept of "true names" does tend to blur this distinction). in the case of PM, he thought that because some people ostensibly dropped from the list, the list quality had decreased. but he seemed to be making this conclusion based on their "real identity". what if they were still around, posting under pseudonyms? would he be able to tell? would the signal quality be the same? the point is that people seem to judge list quality based on criteria in which "true names" play a major role. I'm not saying this is the only way to do it, but I am saying that "true names" seem to be very much ingrained into human psychology, particularly in public forums and attributing credit, and the idea that they are wholly irrelevant to most human endeavor is very suspicious, at least deserving more than a few paragraphs of supposed proof. -- another problem with pseudonyms and list noise is the following. first, let me start by saying I think this list approaches the "dysfunctional" level at times when everyone is ranting about each other about staying on topic. there is an awful lot of hostility on this list. maybe people like it, I'm not sure. I'm interested in the sources of this hostility, though, and I think I can identify some good candidates. the list hostility and tension is quite palpable. when TM prefaces many of his posts, and many others do, with frequent apologies about being on topic, I am amazed to see this because I don't see people so self-conscious on other mailing lists. in my opinion, this is where the role of the moderator is absolutely critical. any mailing list with an AWOL moderator is only asking for total chaos, IMHO. in this case I'll use the word "moderator" and "list creator" interchangeably. the best recommendation to everyone who subscribes to the list, and to the moderator, is that THE MODERATOR DETERMINES WHAT IS RELEVANT. that means that no one else has the authority to do this, NO ONE. if you find a post that bothers you, FIRST WRITE THE LIST MODERATOR. ask the LIST MODERATOR to deal with the offending poster. the list moderator should make a judgement when the list is in a "noise" phase and try to be clear about what is relevant to the list and what is not. what this requires is a watchful eye and regular interventions, IMHO. a list where the moderator is never around may seem like a haven, but in my opinion it only turns into a grouch free-for-all subject to regular conflagrations that leave everyone *really* pissed off, as did a recent eruption by TM and PM. now, whenever you see someone write, THIS ISN'T RELEVANT TO THIS LIST!! THIS DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH CRYPTO!! IMHO you should gently remind this person in email that THEIR OPINION OF WHAT IS RELEVANT OR NOT IS NOT RELEVANT. tell them to write the list moderator first, IN EMAIL. jamming up the communication medium with meta traffic about what is an is not relevant is absolutely futile and useless and counterproductive and extremely anxiety producing. so, as you can see, IMHO people who are continually making judgements about what is or is not relevant to the list, and posting those opinions, are PART OF THE PROBLEM. (I am reminded of one himself talking about people who are part of the problem and who is part of the solution. well, IMHO, ironically, he is PART OF THE PROBLEM, and for a very obvious and clear reason that even an intelligent child could grasp). -- the Yin to the Yang of all this, however, is that the LIST MODERATOR MUST OCCASIONALLY SHOW HIS FACE and make unambiguous rulings about what is and what is not appropriate, especially when the noise level increases and people start to wonder. the problem with this is a list moderator who likes to use one or two pseudonyms. the pseudonyms may be so secret that not *anyone* on the list is aware of his identity, even close friends. this list moderator may be loathe to ever post under his "true name" or whatever name he used to start the list. anyway, you can see that this whole business of pseudonyms, while perhaps workable, is certainly fraught with pitfalls IMHO. at least in situations of *public forums*, I am going to go out on a limb and say that it is very troublesome. it seems that in any forum, there are people who will try to disrupt the proceedings so to speak. in real life you can throw them out, by identifying their *picture*. in a cyberspace that lacks true identities, you cannot throw out these "problem people". they continually come back to haunt you despite your best attempts to bar them. doesn't that bug you? doesn't that irritate you? doesn't that drive you crazy? or do you like the idea that the person you most hate in life might be posting behind any of the next few messages? and there's nothing you can do about it? because you in fact embrace the capabilities that let him do this, and you're pretty sure you're not a hypocrite? well, just some musings for those who unabashadly promote pseudonyms to contemplate. p.s. in regard to the above, about "people other than the moderator posting judgements about what is and is not relevant to the list", I am not making a judgement about what is and is not relevant on the list. I am making a judgement about making a judgement about what is and what is not relevant on the list. <g> --Vlad Nuri

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State Charges in Weaver Case
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One additional news tidbit. FBI director Louis Freeh said he was "extremely disappointed" in the charges against Horiuchi, and promised that the Federal Government would spare no expense in defending him against them. Hey, I've got an idea. Is Stephan Jones free? :) -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ enoch(a)zipcon.com $ via Finger $ {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}

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maximizing cryptographic return
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

the question of the cost-effectiveness of phone encryption was raised by my other message. I would like to question how cheaply good encryption could be done on phones, with a poor quality microprocessor. most on this list are aware of the idea that good encryption is often used to send a low-bandwidth session key, which is then used to encrypt that session using a less sophisticated but less computationally-demanding algorithm. hence you seem to have good security at a computational price that is less than encrypting everything with the secure protocol. I was wondering how secure the following algorithm would be for phone calls: suppose that at the beginning of each session, the random key is traded using RSA or some other very secure approach. the key is a *random bit width*, say 100-6000 bits. now, my question is, I wonder if some very cheap algorithms, in terms of computation time, could be used for the "on the fly" encryption of the voice using those bit. would XOR with the pad be totally out of line? the situation is such that trivial algorithms such as XOR with *unlimited cyphertext* can be broken quite trivially. but it seems to me this dogma that "XOR is WEAK" is based on the premise that you have a huge amount of cyphertext to play with. take away this premise, that you have a session key that is guaranteed to really give you very little cyphertext, do these supposedly "weak" algorithms then become pretty secure? what I am getting at is that it seems there is this frequent assumption that "good cryptography for on-the-fly encryption means you need huge computational bandwidth". I wonder how true this really is. can you have a situation where you spend a lot of time computationally negotiating the *random one time pad*, but then have a fairly weak algorithm doing the on-the-fly encryption with the random pad? IMHO this would be the holy grail for phone hardware. as I wrote, you are already going to have something approximating the power of a low- bandwidth microprocessor in a phone. now imagine it took a long time to send the key at the beginning, but that once traded it was no big deal-- real time communication using even "weak" algorithms. what I am suggesting here is that we can get encryption for almost *no additional cost* over existing phone hardware. and I am suggesting that the main hurdles to encryption are political, not technical. again, I wonder if "weak" encryption schemes are really that weak if they are only used on short cyphertexts and if you have a good, secure OTP (one time pad). I think it may be a delusion that you must have a huge amount of computational bandwidth or have to encrypt every bit using state-of-the-art, computationally-demanding algorithms to have extremely secure on-the-fly communications. p.s. can someone give a brief summary of the Nautilus and PGP session key / code frameworks? p.p.s. a few footnotes in regard to the previous article. widespread, seamless phone encryption is the NSA's absolute worse nightmare. everything they are doing to prevent cryptography can be thought of as trying to avoid this particular reality configuration. pay special attention how they approach the issue and it will tell you what they fear the most, and what they are trying to do to prevent it. also, Bob Morris said in his talk, acc. to Gillogly, that Europeans *were* willing to pay for encryption in their phones, but those in the US weren't. please expand on that little nugget!! how did you come to that conclusion? why are americans fundamentally different than europeans in regard to the value of encryption? if humans want the same thing in most markets (as the situation of international product marketing generally seems to suggest) does it make you think that something besides the desirability of crypto is at stake here in the localities, such as *politics*? --Vlad Nuri

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an end to "courts" (was RE: An end to "court appointed attorneys" )
by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: >It's time to stop this "court appointed attorney" nonsense. If we as a >nation want to change our legal system to one where the court appoints both >sides of a case, prosecution and defense, as in many other countries, fine. >But it's absurd to finance the hiring of defense lawyers. or courts, for that matter. presumably under cryptoanarchy you won't have courts - an imposition of authority on people presumed to accept it - but arbitrators, agreed upon by the two sides. unlike in the common-law, jury system, such arbitrators would perhaps be able to use their intelligence to figure things out by talking to the opposing sides directly, instead of requiring lawyers to pick fights in matters of a "law" so distant from the people it affects that they can't interpret it directly. however, with courts - and the common-law/jury system, which has _some_ benefits over, say, the French or Spanish inquisitorial system of law - you tend to require lawyers, and i suppose court-appointed attornees are a way of "making justice blind" as it ought to be. of course, perhaps lawyers should be avoided by not just the poor defence, but the rich prosecution - the hilariously entertaining McLibel case in Britain showed that gutsy, if somewhat misguided, lawyerless people could pull quite a bit over an expensive "dream team", which McDonalds had. -Rishab First Monday - The Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet http://www.firstmonday.dk/ Munksgaard International Publishers, Copenhagen Intl & Managing Editor - Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (ghosh(a)firstmonday.dk) Mobile +91 98110 14574; Fax +91 11 2209608; Tel +91 11 2454717 A4/204 Ekta Apts., 9 Indraprastha Extn, New Delhi 110092 INDIA

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European wilingness to pay ...
by p.v.mcmahon.rea0803＠oasis.icl.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> also, Bob Morris said in his talk, acc. to Gillogly, that Europeans > *were* willing to pay for encryption in their phones, but those in the > US weren't. please expand on that little nugget!! how did you come Presumably this is a reference to GSM. - pvm

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Re: Crypto '95: Robert Morris
by patrick＠Verity.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> So Robert Morris worked for NSA. > Does that mean that the infamous 1988 Internet Worm > was part of a NSA-sponsored intelligence-gathering mission? > No, that was his kid! Imagine his chagrin! Patrick _______________________________________________________________________ / These opinions are mine, and not Verity's (except by coincidence;). \ | (\ | | Patrick J. Horgan Verity Inc. \\ Have | | patrick(a)verity.com 1550 Plymouth Street \\ _ Sword | | Phone : (415)960-7600 Mountain View \\/ Will | | FAX : (415)960-7750 California 94303 _/\\ Travel | \___________________________________________________________\)__________/

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[Fwd: (Fwd) Microsoft - The Next Generation...]
by Arthur Unknown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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rump session papers
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I ran out of copies of my rump session paper handouts. So, I put them on my ftp server... ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/cme/ps/ cepp.ps :: a couple of symmetric modes for block ciphers which I threw out for people to attack.... k1.ps :: Key exchange algorithm K-1 -- with some very suggestive properties. Whit Diffie titled this one "If S-1 is Skipjack, then K-1 is KEA" in the rump session list. I'm not about to make that claim -- but it *does* have some interesting characteristics. Enjoy, Carl +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)acm.org http://www.clark.net/pub/cme/home.html | |PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | | ``Officer, officer, arrest that man! He's whistling a dirty song.'' | +----------------------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison -+

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