December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: No matter where you go, there they are.
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Roger Williams <roger(a)coelacanth.com> > >>>>> Hal <hfinney(a)shell.portal.com> writes: > > > Note however that Denning did not mention the Internet in her > > spiel. > > Well, assuming that she wrote *any* of the spiel, she does: > > "Where it works > > ... Location-based > authentication could facilitate telecommuting by countering the > vulnerabilities associated with remote access over dial-in lines and > Internet connections..." She wrote it. The original of the paper may be found at http://all.net/journal/csi/csi-96-01.html Peter Trei trei(a)process.com

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Re: On computer face recognition:
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:48 PM 4/11/96, Alan Horowitz wrote: >How do _people_ recognize faces? Still an open question, last I heard. It may be unknowable, at least in a formal sense. That is, we know that babies can recognize the faces of their mothers in fractions of a second (no, I don't have a reference for this, but I remember the number from my days as an AI person at Intel). There may be no simple description that is used, such as angles between eye line and mouth, convexity of chin, whatever. What is important is that face recognition happens in about 30-100 "cycles" of the brain, implying massive parallelism (hardly surprising). There are, of course, very few recognition algorithms that run on conventional computer architecures in so few cycles. By "unknowable" I don't mean "supernatural," merely not practically describable as an algorithm runnable on conventional von Neumann-type machines. "Neural net" is the buzzword usually associated with this. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:36 AM 4/11/96, jamesd(a)echeque.com wrote: >At 10:36 PM 4/9/96 -0400, JonWienke(a)aol.com wrote: >> Would anyone like to propose a means of measuring entropy that we can all >> agree on? I haven't seen anything yet that everyone likes. > >Nor will you: To measure entropy is a deep unsolved philosophical >and physical problem. Indeed. That there can be no simple definition of entropy, or randomness, for an arbitrary set of things, is essentially equivalent to Godel's Theorem. (To forestall charges that I am relying on an all-too-common form of bullshitting, by referring to Godel, what I mean is that "randomness" is best defined in terms of algorithmic information theory, a la Kolmogorov and Chaitin, and explored in Li and Vitanyi's excellent textbook, "Algorithmic Information Theory and its Applications.") Think of it this way: when can a set of things, a string, etc., be _compressed_. Answer: whenever a compression is found. Most things have no real compressions, that is, they have no shorter description than themselves. But they _might_ have a shorter description, a compression, and we can never say for sure that they do not. Thus, even a set which we think is of "high entropy" (roughly, "high randomness" or "no order" or "not compressible") may actually have some hidden order, or compressibility, not apparent at first glance. That we can never know when we have achieved maximum compression is a profound result of modern mathematics and information theory. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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[NOISE] Why there are so many cluless people
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Today, I heard a commercial on the radio. Some company wants to help you make $1k+ per day as an Internet expert. Simply listen to their one week audio tape course and you know everything you need to work as an Internet consultant. Sigh, -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: No matter where you go, there they are.
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[ Dorothy - there's been substantial discussion on cypherpunks about your position escrow proposal; the paper that's on your web page was posted here.] At 03:01 PM 4/11/96 -0400, perry(a)piermont.com wrote: >Paul_Koning/US/3Com%3COM(a)smtp1.isd.3com.com writes: >> Suppose I want to pretend that I am 1000 feet closer to satellite 4 than >> I really am. Simple, I take the signals from all the other satellites >> and delay them by 1 microsecond. That looks like a 1 microsecond >> local timebase error together with a 1 microsecond delay reduction >> to satellite 4. >Aren't things even worse? Since the satelite signals are not >authenticated with anything like public key methods, couldn't I just >synthesize a signal appropriate to any spot on the planet, knowing the >positions of the satelites relative to that spot? No, you can't. One problem is that the Selective Availability coding isn't predictable, since it uses some kind of secret military code - so you don't know what its values are until you hear them. So as long as you share any satellites with the recipient, you need to be sure to output the correct codes for that satellite, which means you need to either be in range or have access to some internet "position remailer" site that's making them available. As far as predicting relative timing between satellites to fake your position, if that's sufficiently unpredictable that you can't fake it, as Denning and MacDoran say, then it should also be equally unpredictable to the verifier who wants to know if you're telling the truth or faking it. And if you require systems to respond to requests for "Where are you now?" or especially "Where were you on the night of April 13th at 8:37pm?", the spoofer can request that information just as easily as the verifier. One method that could be used to prevent faking is GPS receivers with "tamperproof" digital signature capability, which would not only receive the location information but sign it; that's not much more secure than just having a "tamperproof" token in the first place. As far as the multipath issues that some people have brought up, I searched for "MacDoran" on altavista, and found several papers on GPS multipath, so they're aware of the issue, though I don't know how they're planning to address it. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215

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Re: questions about bits and bytes
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:05 AM 4/11/96 -0800, jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> wrote: >>- From a really quick web search, we find that the SGI Impact jams 9-bit >>bytes [that's what it says] across the Rambus internally. I'm not sure >>if the memory itself is 9-bit. > >Are you sure they're not referring to 8 bits of data and a parity bit? In >any case, please give the address to the list so that it can be checked out. www.altavista.digital.com, which is the address of almost everything :-) If you don't count the parity bit as part of the byte here, you probably shouldn't count it in a typical 7-bit-ASCII-plus-parity situation either. As far as jamming 9-bit-bytes across a bus, that almost certainly _is_ 8 bits of data and one parity bit; people have been agitating for and debating parity on memory busses for a long time. AT&T's Datakit switch (an ancestor of ATM) used 9-bit bytes on its data busses, where 8 bits were data-from-outside and one bit was a control-vs-data indicator, which let cards listening to the bus decide whether to think about the byte with their control processors or just shove them onto an output wire. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215

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Re: "Contempt" charges likely to increase
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 6-APR-1996 16:17:13.99 >I might add that the Cayman Islands are full of trust companies with >provisions which forbid the disclosure of data to a client who is >coerced. A law on the books refuses to recognize "consent" orders made >under judicial compulsion. This would give the appearance of total >unavailability of evidence and suggest the futility of contempt >charges. Yet courts have still, and with no small measure of success, >imposed sanctions on witnesses so protected. What measure of success? Getting the data, or locking up the witness? -Allen

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Re: Protocols at the Point of a Gun
by Marshall Clow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Scott Brickner wrote: >Somebody who might be Marshall Clow wrote: >>Multiple IP #s, multiple machines, multiple users, ONE account. >>Which router will insert the "suggested" flag, and how will it decide which >>packets to tag? > >The way I envision it (in my nightmares), you'd have two options: have >the account configured as "kid safe", and live in a cyberspace playground, >or have it configured as "adult", and accept responsibility for your kids' >use. > I have no problem whatsoever with this. Guess which option I'd choose :-) However, given the hysteria that is surrounding the CDA, etc., I think that the second option would be "politically unacceptable". The whole thrust [ sorry for the sexual imagery ;-) ] behind [ oops, now it's sodomy ] the CDA is that it's not good enough for parents to take responsibility for their children's use; the government must be involved. -- Marshall Marshall Clow Aladdin Systems <mailto:mclow@mailhost2.csusm.edu> "Eternal vigilance is the price of PostScript" -- MacUser Jan 96 DTP and Graphics column

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Re: Spinners and compression functions
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have had a somewhat related idea to this on compression regarding steaography and which bits are the best ones to use. How about those that a lossy compression method that's reasonable loses first? These are the ones that aren't going to be noticed by the viewer, and (if the compression method is good) will have at least somewhat higher entropy than the rest. -Allen

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Re: Entropy Estimator
by rick hoselton 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:19 AM 4/12/96 -0400, JonWienke(a)aol.com wrote: >I just added a feature to my entropy graphing program that >estimates the number of bits of entropy in the file, Hey, that's just what I need. I have these two 8-million byte files. One is a recording made by a geiger counter, every bit is uncorrelated with anything else in the universe and each bit is equally likely to be a one or a zero. The second file is an IDEA encryption of all the four-byte numbers from one to two-million. Here's my problem. I can't remember which file is which, and I've forgotten sixty-four bits of the key I used to produce the encrypted file. That's where your technique come in. The first file has sixty-four million bits of entropy. The second file has only sixty-four bits of entropy, total (the missing key bits). Surely, your technique can tell me which file is which. Estimating entropy can be difficult, and I don't expect perfection. But any measuring technique that is not a complete HOAX must be able to clearly find a difference of six orders of magnitude. If you tried to give me a ruler that couldn't detect the difference between a millimeter and a kilometer, I might think you misunderstood something about the concept of distance. If encouraged me to use a clock that could not measure the difference between a minute and a year, many would conclude that you were not an expert in chronology. So, if your technique is worth anything at all, it should be able to accomplish this easy task. PS. I think it is your patriotic duty to report this technique to the Federal government. They frequently need to distinguish between ciphertext and just plain random digits. A breakthrough like this would have a major impact on national security. They might be willing to remove ITAR restrictions from cryptography, out of gratitude to the cypherpunks.

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PICS
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I had a chance for a brief look at the PICS protocol, and it seems to have a lot of cypherpunks relevance. It includes features such as: Multiple third party rating systems Digital signatures I will have to find time to look at it in more detail. Regards - Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Cypherpunks Bay Area - Saturday 1:00 Printer's Ink
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The usual suspects for meeting places having fallen through, there will be a Bay Area Cypherpunks meeting at 1:00 Saturday at Printer's Ink on Castro Street in Mountain View. Meet at the outside tables by the side of the building, and we'll see if the meeting migrates from there. If we're not there, and the meeting has moved when you arrive, look for a note on a lamppost in front of the building. Directions: Castro Street goes between the Central Expressway and El Camino Real in the middle of Mountain View; Printer's Ink is on a corner in the middle. Parking is around back. Coffee is upstairs, books are inside. Directions from far away - take Route 101 to the Moffett exit, head west/south, watch the street name mutate at the Central Expressway and train tracks. Public Transit: Take CalTrain to the Mountain View Exit, walk about three blocks west/south. Agenda: As you've guessed from this highly timely notice, there's a full schedule of events planned. I'd like to talk about remailer spam prevention, and there's been a lot of activity recently on Denning's position escrow, Scientology court cases, CDA, and other entertaining politics. Thanks! Bill Replies to: stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com

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Edited Edupage, 4 April 1996
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"educom(a)elanor.oit.unc.edu" 5-APR-1996 01:25:00.85 >***************************************************************** >Edupage, 4 April 1996. Edupage, a summary of news items on information >technology, is provided three times each week as a service by Educom, >a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities >seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. >***************************************************************** >IBM'S INTELLIGENT MINER DIGS OUT THE GOOD STUFF >IBM plans to offer companies "data mining" software and services, allowing >them to make better use of disparate pieces of information stored in their >computer systems. The Intelligent Miner software will be available on IBM's >RS/6000 servers by the fall, and on other platforms by year end. The >company also plans to develop Intelligent Decision Server software for local >area network-based information analysis. (Investor's Business Daily 3 Apr >96 A9) Anyone have any _specific_ ideas on how their Intelligent Miner system works? It would appear to be relevant to the identity-spoofing discussions. -Allen >Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl(a)educom.edu) & Suzanne Douglas >(douglas(a)educom.edu) Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057. >Technical support is provided by the Office of Information Technology, >University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. >*************************************************************** >EDUPAGE is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to Edupage: send >mail to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: >subscribe edupage Marilyn Monroe (if your name is Marilyn Monroe; if it's >not, substitute your own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: >listproc(a)educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe >edupage. (If you have subscription problems, send mail to >educom(a)educom.unc.edu.)

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Re: Protocols at the Point of a Gun
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How fortuitous! At 8:09 PM 4/12/96, Marshall Clow wrote: > However, given the hysteria that is surrounding the CDA, etc., I think >that > the second option would be "politically unacceptable". The whole thrust [ > sorry for the sexual imagery ;-) ] behind [ oops, now it's sodomy ] the >CDA > is that it's not good enough for parents to take responsibility for their > children's use; the government must be involved. Yeah. What *he* said. Actually, this gratuitous waste of bandwidth brought to you by my new .sig, courtesy of my samoan attorney, one Vincent Moscaritolo. Vinnie, to his friends... Cheers, Bob Hettinga Note new .sig! \|/ \|/ \|/ V V V ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "If they just passed a few more laws, we could all be criminals." --Vinnie Moscaritolo The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

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How the other half lives - why encryption is necessary
by Dave Emery 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following showed up on a public radio-oriented mailing list I occasionally read - if this is really a true report by a confessed cordless/cellular scanner freak who got caught taping calls and passing the tapes around it is certainly illuminating as someone in an official position may have possibly said much more than more sophisticated law enforcement eavesdroppers would ever admit to. Clearly most people would think the law in the matter was very different than the attitude here expressed, though I think that many of the more cynical would view this as no surprise at all and indeed SOP in most investigative agencies, I cannot vouch for the identity of the poster or the veracity of this. However I think it certainly shows the official attitude that has made many of us advocates of encryption, particularly of wireless communications, and deeply suspicious of the notion that court ordered wiretaps are the only ones used by the police and other agencies. Forwarded message: From scan-mass-east-request(a)nomad.n-reading.ma.us Old-Return-Path: <merk!tiac.net!kilo> Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 19:17:41 -0400 Message-Id: <199604122317.TAA17404(a)zork.tiac.net> X-Sender:kilo@tiac.net X-Mailing-List:<scan-mass-east(a)nomad.n-reading.ma.us CORDLESS PHONE MONITORING: -- I was accused of monitoring phone conversations of public officals over a scanner. I was accused of taping said conversations in which the public officals were conducting town buissness in a illegal manner etc. The allegded tapes (copies) were allegedly passed around to "other" town officals for them to hear what was being "said", "done", and what actions were about to unfold. A investigation by the Mass. District Attoney was ordered and the results if that investigation is as follows ---- "The information available during this investigation indicated that the telephone calls which were tape recorded were made on a cellular telephone or a portable telephone. No evidence was obtained indicating a wire communication was illegally intercepted and recorded. The audio tape that was around the town of $%#@!%^%$$ and played for several individuals was not recovered. @@ @#$$#% ^%%&* found the tape left on the front seat of %$^ car and had it for a period of time, but does not have it or knew where it was at this time. This officer (police) explained to those directly involved that cellular telephone conversations and any conversation that is transmitted over the airwaves is not protected communitations, as there is no expectation of privacy in the open airways. I further informed those involved that there are people who have nothing better to do then listen and record such cellular telephone calls and this means of communication is not secure. This officer requests that this investigation be closed". That is from the Masssachusetts District Attoney's Office in Barnstable,Mass. ******** In fact when I was interviewed I was told flat out that lawenforcement "does not want" it to be against the law, because not only do they hear about drug transactions which allows them to bust subjects, "BUT" it is also a saftey tool, for at times the people under survailance talk using this type of communication and they (POLICE) can find out if the subject(s) have weapons, etc. etc......!!!!! That's what my experience in this area is... Happy Scanning!!!!!!!!!! Vietnam Vets - "USMC"

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Re: So, what crypto legislation (if any) is necessary?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 5-APR-1996 06:26:05.96 >There are ways to resist compelled discovery. These are not they. Any methods you're willing to mention sans a money order? -Allen

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Re: Demonizing the Opposition: Bruce "The Toolman" Taylor
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:08 PM 4/12/96 -0400, Robert Hettinga wrote: >Bruce "Penis with a Blister" Taylor >abbreviated PWAB, or "Blister" I suppose Seems to me that "a penis with a blister on it" is a good description of a picture of active syphilis. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: No matter where you go, there they are.
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:14 PM 4/11/96 -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: >Jim McCoy wrote: > What is >| Dennings fascination with building Big Brother? > > She read Snow Crash, and it scared her. > Snow Crash is a book about a future in which governments are >ineffective. Companies run things, and have complete local control. >The world has gone to hell, and as a result, life is nasty, poor, >brutish and short. Many people do not look forward to this world. >Thats an understandable reaction; when I first heard about anonymous >assasination markets, I thought it was pretty bizzare as a world to >look forward to. However, looked at from the standpoint of somebody who is not already steeped in it, OUR society is a "pretty bizarre world." Ostensibly we live in a society that loves freedom, yet it's controlled by a rather tiny number of people who wield an extraordinarily large amount of power. We can be beaten or killed by agents of the government, and the only time a ruckus seems to be raised is when there happens to be a camcorder nearby, one that the police do not notice in time. I haven't heard much speculation about why we never (actually, almost never) see such cases without recordings. > Then I heard Neal Stephenson speak. And he brought up a very >good point, which was Hitler killed more people than Charles Manson >because Hitler had a big country, and its large army. I look >forward to smaller, weaker government that can't put the Japs in >holding camps, surround and harras the Branch Davidians, etc. > > The debate, really, boils down to Hobbes v. Locke, or Plato v. >Aristotle. Its not going to be resolved anytime soon by a >philosopher. I think it will be resolved by a computer programmer. I am reminded of the scene in the TV show "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," when the two philosophers complained to the computer, "Deep Thought" (Assigned the task of answering the question of "Life, the Universe, and Everything"), something like "What's the point of debating the existence of God, when you're going to tell us his address?" There is precedent for this kind of frustration. I seem to recall that more than 10 years ago, or more, that the solution/proof for the 4-color mapping problem (The theory that all maps could be colored with at most 4 colors) was done by computer. It was accomplished, as I recall, by exhaustively testing "all" the various possibilities (having been narrowed down appropriately), and determing that they needed no more than 4 colors. Mathematicians, who were used to multi-page proofs that a human could actually comprehend and follow on a step-by-step basis, were unhappy that it all came down to a computer. Many of us have read Mill, Hayek, Freidman, Nozick, and >decided that we prefer that world view. That Dr. Denning has decided >that she likes Philosopher-Kings is not particularly unusual, except >in the computer business. Go read Leviathan. Think about what we're >talking about here. > > Its a scary new world that I expect will be created, by the >UNSTOPPABLE advance of technology. There is no weapon created that is >not used by someone who judges the cause to be worthwhile. Nukes, >chemicals, and biologicals have all been used against civilian >populations. I judge that stopping the advance of cryptoanarchist >technology will fail (in the long run), and not be worth the price. I >suspect Dorothy disagrees, and there lies her fascination with >building in Big Brother. I think the thing to remember is that the "worth the price" issue appears to depend substantially on who you are. If you're a powerful government official, who fears losing his cushy job and maybe even his life, it may appear to be worth an effort. From the standpoint of the ordinary citizen, however, if he understands what's at stake he'll recognize that it isn't. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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"Batman" Read!--How to Unsubscribe
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:11 PM 4/11/96, Batman wrote: >Please PUT me OUT of YOUR cypherpunks AND other MAIL-LISTS > >Thankx I sent you instructions by private e-mail, and in a separate posting on the list. If you had read either of these messages and followed the "unsubscribe" instructions, you could remove yourself from the list. If, however, you are not reading messages that arrive in your mailbox, including messages on this list and personal mail, then you are likely not reading _this_ message either, and it is hopeless for you. You will be condemned to getting list traffic until you get a clue. On the off chance you read this message by either of the routes, instructions are included _again_ at the end of this message. (And I have retitled your thread name...the message name "Re:" is not terribly helpful, and indicates you took no time to compose a meaningful title.) How to subscribe to the Cypherpunks mailing list: send a message to "majordomo(a)toad.com" with the body message "subscribe cypherpunks". To unsubscribe, send the message "unsubscribe cypherpunks" to the same address. For help, send "help cypherpunks". Don't send these requests to the Cypherpunks list itself. And be aware that the list generates between 40 and 100 messages a day.

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CDA Court Challenge: Update #6
by rodger＠interramp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 4/11/96 Declan McCullagh wrote: >+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ > WHO CARES ABOUT KIDS: WHO ARE THE ADULTS? >+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ > >The third way to answer the now-tiresome who-are-the-kiddies question >is to turn it on its head and ask: "Who are the adults?" > >Hardware to answer that question already exists. The March 25 issue of >Interactive Week reports that Livingston Enterprises, Inc. has >colluded with Senator Exon's staff to design an "Exon box" -- a router >that lets ISPs cut off unrated or "indecent" or unrated sites. To get >around the block, an "adult" enters a secret password that tells the >router to open a session and let the packets flow. > Whoa. Thanks for mentioning my article, Declan, but I think "colluded" is too strong here - as far as I know, Livingston never contacted Exon, even though Livingston's ChoiceNet can undoubtedly play into his hands. >Exon's staff is heralding this as an example of how easy it is to comply >with the CDA. Almost - Bruce Taylor is, actually, but he's not part of Exon's satff. The only problem is that, like many such >hamfisted censorship "solutions," it sucks, and it ain't going to >work. One of the original architects of the Internet, David P. Reed, >wrote: > > I do work to protect my children from inappropriate material, but > pressure from Senators to mandate technically flawed solutions, and > opportunistic, poorly thought-through technologies from companies > like Livingston are not helpful. > It should be noted that Livingston is promoting this as a voluntary solution a la PICS. PICS' own Web pages, after all, suggest software on routers could do the job as well as client products like NetNanny, CyberPatrol, etc. There are some distinct advantages to doing it that way, in fact. Livingston insists this is an alternative to mandatory censorship, but they're not being shy about admitting it can be used in other ways, too. All that said, you cypherpunks can speculate who's up to what in all this. Will Rodger Washington Bureau Chief Interactive Week

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Re: A MODEST PROPOSAL (fwd)
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com" "Bill Stewart" 2-APR-1996 06:31:08.52 >This happens any time anybody signs up with an an######(a)anon.penet.fi address. >Ideally, someone could, in their copious spare time, hack majordomo >to automatically translate all subscription requests of that form to >na######(a)anon.penet.fi ; as an alternative, if majordomo has some sort >of subscription blocking list an*(a)anon.penet.fi belongs on it. In other words, majordomo is broken. I should have suspected as much, given the weird way headers turn up compared to all other mailing list programs. Can that be reconfigured by the list owner? I may be starting up a list (on c2.org) sometime (after I finish 3 papers, an oral presentation, and some finals), and what I've got available is majordomo. Curing this problem would be good. -Allen

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Re: Entropy Estimator
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:06 PM 4/12/96, rick hoselton wrote: >At 12:19 AM 4/12/96 -0400, JonWienke(a)aol.com wrote: > >>I just added a feature to my entropy graphing program that >>estimates the number of bits of entropy in the file, > >Hey, that's just what I need. I have these two 8-million byte >files. One is a recording made by a geiger counter, every bit >is uncorrelated with anything else in the universe and each bit >is equally likely to be a one or a zero. The second file is an >IDEA encryption of all the four-byte numbers >from one to two-million. > >Here's my problem. I can't remember which file is which, and I've >forgotten sixty-four bits of the key I used to produce the encrypted file. > >That's where your technique come in. The first file has sixty-four >million bits of entropy. The second file has only sixty-four bits >of entropy, total (the missing key bits). Surely, your technique can >tell me which file is which. No, this is not the case. Suppose your file of 64 million bits of entropy is stored as "Rick's Geiger Counter File," perhaps on your Web site. (Great for use by various people as a "virtual one time pad" (patent pending).) A year or so from now someone asks a program to measure the entropy of this file. Nearly all programs will report that the file has lots of bits of entropy... However, is this the "true" entropy? A clever program, or a person, might well remember that this file is Rick's Geiger Counter File, making the bits _very_ predictable (or, equivalently, little "surprise," low entropy, great compressibility, etc.). Once again, one can never know for sure that a file, sequence, string is maximally compressed. The application to your stated problem is that the two files might very well have similar statistics (a good cryptographic hash function is likely to produce a regular output, for example) and that a program cannot tell which one is the "really random" file and which is the "seemingly random" file is not a failing of the program, necessarily, but is implicit in some inevitable limitations of all programs. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: PICS required by laws
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"frantz(a)netcom.com" 6-APR-1996 16:21:56.32 >I am less worried about this possibility than most. PICS scrubbers will be >as easy to produce as any other web intermediary. (e.g. The one which >replaces "bad" words with "censored".) Quite... as will ones that flip-flop the various packet bits that people are discussing. >I do not make these comments publicly, because I don't want to poke holes >in network self censorship while the courts are grinding on the CDA. (Note >that true self censorship, where the viewer wants the filtering would not >be impacted. Those viewers would just not use that kind of intermediary.) I don't plan on mentioning it on CuDigest, either... just that any imposition of this standard will leave countries where it isn't imposed. > I applaud the ACLU's position in not rating their web page. I will also >note that it is possible for a PICS filter to refuse to pass unrated pages. Yes... and it would be possible for a PICS unrating filter to simply set all of them to child-OK. With the current discussion of packet-based censorship, it would appear possible for the bit in question to be reset by _any_ of the systems it passes over at least as easily as those systems could use this bit for filtration. I would suggest a "Trojan Horse" program to do this, in order to A. get governmental systems and B. give SYSOPs an excuse to run the flipping program. This flipping could produce either child-visible or child-invisible material, depending on what result the system in question wished to produce. Child-visible would help the children; child-invisible would make the Net unusable for children whose parents weren't sensible enough to not use such software. The latter, applied to technical material, would also drive China, Singapore, et al nuts. > If much of the technical information on the net is unrated, China, >Singapore etc. will be between a rock and a hard place with the >anti-censorship intermediaries. -Allen

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Re: the cost of untracability?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"weidai(a)eskimo.com" "Wei Dai" 7-APR-1996 10:52:52.30 >I think you're right. There is no need for the issuer to pay explicit >interest. The easiest way to eliminate signorage would be to steadily >increase the value of each denomination of ecash. It would be kind of >like a mutual fund that doesn't pay dividends. In fact, if the ecash is >backed by a portfolio of investment securities and its value floats with >the value of the portfolio, then it would be almost exactly like a mutual >fund. Another method would be for ecash to have a label on it as to when the issuer would redeem it. Until then, if you want cash from it, find someone else to trade to. This has the interest advantage for the purchaser, and the advantage to the issuer that they won't have to worry about when someone will redeem it. They'll know that they'll need to have a particular amount on a particular date, and their earnings/losses up until that point can vary all over the place without being worried about whether they can make their payments. Ideal for a startup business. -Allen

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Lotus Notes 24-bit sellout
by Jerry Whiting 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

When Ray Ozzie announced the work reduction sellout at the RSA conference, both he and Ms Denning (whom I spoke with about it later) mentioned that there was something else in Lotus Notes 4 besides the 40+24 bit compromise. My thought is that the NSA gave them something else in exchange for the mandatory escrow scheme they're all talking about publicly. Perhaps some other crypto code the NSA had lying around unused. So looking for a common 24-bit subkey may reduce Notes' key to a 40-bit brute force exercise but the 40+24 is probably not ALL that's in Notes 4. Definitely a deal with the Devil. Given that we're talking about IBM, not Lotus none of this surprises me given IBM's Lucifer/DES history with spook input years ago. Then again to be fair, I don't know if the 40+24 deal was cooked up before or after the IBM/Lotus merger. Jerry Whiting Azalea Software, Inc. P.S. Yes, I'm the one doing carrick "Encryption software so good, the Feds won't let us export it." In fact, we schedule for a visit from the NSA next month regarding our desire to export carrick to Australia. The mere mention of a Blowfish-based crypto product left my assigned spook momentarly speechless. Something tells me they ain't gonna let carrick out of the country with a key length worth using. AND I DEFINITELY AIN'T INTERSTED IN MAKING A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.

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