December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: SHI_fty
by Bill Olson (EDP) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Vinnie Moscaritolo writes: <snip> >>>Uh I think apple had that for a while, it's called cyberdog >>>http://cyberdog.apple.com screw this ole fud. >> >>Very true. But once again, it is not the technology that molds the >>world, but the exploitation thereof. Welcome to capitalism. >>> > >so shit floats...whats your point? Let me spell it out for you: M-O-N-E-Y. Shit floats. Apple doesn't... don't kill the messenger.

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Public briefing on NRC Cryptography Policy Report in...
by CRYPTO 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: Public briefing on NRC Cryptography Policy Report in Boston, August 7 Please post widely.... Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society A Public Briefing in Boston, Massachusetts Wednesday, August 7, 1996, 10:00 am to noon There will be a public briefing Boston, Massachusetts by the National Research Council on the report. The briefing will be held at the Gardener Auditorium in the State House in Boston on Wednesday, August 7, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon. Check http://www.tiac.net/biz/bcslegal for current information. Authoring committee member Elliot M. Stone will be among the presenters at the Boston briefing. Dr. Herbert Lin, study director and senior staff officer of CSTB, will be present. The Boston Computer Society Legal Group, the Boston Bar Association and the Information Technology Division of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are co-hosts for this event. Questions from the audience will be entertained, and a limited number of pre-publication copies of the report will be available at that time. For further information, please contact Dan Greenwood at (617) 973-0071 or DGreenwood @ state.ma.us. The event is open to the press and the public. If you have suggestions about other places that the committee should offer a public briefing, please send e-mail to crypto(a)nas.edu.

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RE: No more stupid gun thread ...
by Bill Olson (EDP) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ernest Hua writes: > >Ok. This thread has gone on long enough and covered just about every >point except the one which I originally made in my first response, >which is that I abhor the idea that kids should carry weapons (of any >sort) to school as standard equipment. In fact, I abhor the idea >that kids should carry weapons at school for any reason. > >Enough said. > >I do not care to discuss: > >1. Should kids have any weapons at any time? > >2. Should kids have guns (specifically guns)? > >3. Should kids know how to operate weapons of any sort? > >If any of you really really have to discuss this issue, let's spare >the rest of the list and send me E-Mail directly. > >Thanks! > >Ern Who died and left you in charge?

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Re: Digital Watermarks for copy protection in recent Billbo
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:03 AM 7/24/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>Not familiar with the Nyquist limit w/ regards to sampling rate vs >>frequency :( > >Check any textbook, or even a good dictionary. Basically, it says that one >must sample at more than twice the frequency of the highest frequency to be >reconstructed. Thus, a 20 KHz top frequency needs at least 40 K samples per >second. The exact number is, I think, about 2.2x the freqency, which is why >CDs were standardized at 44 K samples per second per channel. No, Tim, the minimum Nyquist sample frequency _is_ precisely 2.000 times the highest frequency to be recovered. However, what is somewhat less well-known is the fact that in order to keep higher frequencies from being "aliased" (reflected to lower frequencies by heterodyne processes) it is necessary to remove (by filtering) any frequency content above that maximum, before sampling is done. Real-world filters (at least, _economical_ ones) do not have instantaneous cutoffs, so it is necessary to provide a little margin, in this case about 10%. Fortunately, a play-only CD only needs output filters, and the input data (the CD disk itself) has already been limited to about 20 kilohertz, so its requirements are not so stringent. The reason so-called "oversampling" started to be done on CD players is that interpolating digitally between samples results in a far higher aliased noise frequencies, allowing either better performance with the same-quality of filters, or equal quality with lower-cost filters, or a combination of them both. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: [Noise] Hettinga Sees Colors...
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:20 PM 7/22/96 -0400, Robert Hettinga wrote: >Anyway, I was standing there at the monument to the British war dead ;-), >and said to the kids (ages 15, 13, and 11), "Guys, right here, on this >spot," (they looked down) " is were America [sic] started. If you could >imagine the ground here painted red, white and blue, and then the colors >radiating out from here in all directions", (they looked around) "from the >Atlantic to the Pacific, to Alaska and Hawaii, and bunch of islands in both >oceans. Oh, yeah. Even the Moon." Then they looked up. By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmer's stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. See also: http://www.inc.net/~fhs/littour/bridge.html Relevant to cypherpunks because to steal from Nelson Thall of some Marshall McLuhan Institute in the latest Wired: "Ultimately, the power of the Internet is that it makes you think like a North American. It allows the entire world to think and write like North Americans. This is the agenda of the Internet. It goes along with NAFTA." An *why* is it vital that the world become like 'North Americans' (or, as we non-Canadians would say 'Americans')? See my follow-up message. DCF

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A Global Village; an open letter to Bill & Hill and also Mr. & Mrs. Dole, from Asim at Molecule One. Cypherpunks, please excuse this note.
by molecul1＠molecule1.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Honourable wishes, I write about Mrs. Clinton's concept of Global Village and wholeheartedly, pledge my support to such an important concept. The world is everchanging and Mrs. Clinton is correct in that the industrialized countries have lost, most, of their extended families. This makes children vulnerable to danger. If in need of help, such children are commonly abused due to their vulnerability. I want to take this moment to express some understandings. Firstly, it was never in my plan to locate where I have been over the last while. Probably, if it hadn't been for many malicious encounters, I probably would of gone to a remote island, as I hold so dear to my heart. A close friend was severly violated and I had to witness a war being fought against civillians. When an insurance policy becomes more valuable than the human life, something must be wrong with social ethics. To live through many of the experiences I had to, while living here, made me realize high technology is dangerous in many peoples lives. To manipulate peoples decisions using brute force seemed terribly wrong to me. Many of the people controlling the situations are also stressed out. Abuse results from stress. Concerning the old man. I knew of this man since childhood. I always considered him one of the greatest neuroscientists on the planet earth. Even his friends hold him with a greatest respect. What he accomplished, very few could match his accomplishments. I send much thanks to Point Communications for allowing me a long interview about my social concerns. I wanted to personally thank all the K12 students that partook in my interview. I was never able to attend the requests of some of those students, that asked me to review some of their essays, as my time was occupied with endless other obstacles. I want those students to understand that I just couldn't. I want to thank all those cool students that let me participate at their, private, dance parties. They know I attended endless dance parties, researching technological requirements, so they are happy and socially satisfied. I also got to know what kind of social threats they are faced with, both, underground and official. Stress does tend to corrupt some people. I want you to understand that I came up with Molecule One as a means to address the needs of a culture. Even though many plots were directed at me for proposing this project, I always knew I spoke the truth and my intentions were pure. Neurosciences has always been a lifelong inspiration to me. Standards, to improve the quality of life in society, seemed a noble goal. I want the students to know that Molecule One was created for their benefit first. They are the future. When a child remains innocent, that innocence should be protected. Far too often, children loose their innocence to hardend people, who's primary motive is malicious intent. Naivete and innocence is purity and lack of ethical standard is rampent. I knew that acceptance of truth is difficult for some people, especially those ignorant and those conditioned to believe otherwise. I always chose positive as an outcome for motive. I want to thank all of you, Republican, Democrat, and families, friends and which other political inspiration. I respect all life and those standards that can increase the health standard of all people. There are many important factors that must be considered to insure a safe and healthy society, of the future. To work together, to attain this standard, is important for all people, irregardless of color. Care and courtesy, toward our fellow people, is another social characteristic that is becoming lost, with the loss of the extended family. I also want to thank all those cool computer folk that let me play upon the info highway, as it was being developed. I want to thank all those cyberfolk that recognised the import of all topics covered. Understand well, visions of tropical islands have floated through my mind, probably, everyday I've been here. It was my concern for the youth and for the elderly that made me stay and attempt to create a project that could bring happiness and harmony, to the society, for a long time to come. It is a challenge. Thanks for the cyber inspiration, acknowledgement and being allowed the opportunity to create a work of art that can benefit so many. To the 1'st family & 2 Mr.& Mrs. Dole, all friends and families. Peace and best wishes, Sincerely, Asim molecul1(a)molecule1.com

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Re: Another fascist
by Remo Pini 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Tue Jul 23 14:13:43 1996 It's kind of childish... (And clumsily done, or else David would never have known) - --------< fate favors the prepared mind >-------- Remo Pini rp(a)rpini.com PGP: http://www.rpini.com/remopini/rpcrypto.html - ------< words are what reality is made of >------ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMfTB+BFhy5sz+bTpAQGCGAgAvbFSYoLn1aogjB4fIu8RRrCiSVo8zAl+ 9ilpfYQ7jaKnzO8kJsz40NWu4jPTYbgqw7wYbw4e37XYGCLdBAqUT/0SSwCF/id2 nyVLU09vGiAtjZUsLTQRjTd2qF89CwcxcEWtEu3LjTKI8z5QD5L+O8yeh444dXbH Jhu42Cho0gGfAqK8SvzZzX7LDh4N0tQox2s9lc4XqisioBRRI0f4MOEqrOfGz+2/ MWOxaySADXJJ2Xp+yRLhFuH2n92VIenH4lzU2r8dmnGD4/PYoZsE+GSeO5dyohdl cn4gmB57S5aBsu235eCatqMEtk3auqAJfDCaIInX2rlaZS/47TpTQg== =iyK1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Another fascist
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:26 PM 7/22/96 -0700, David Sternlight <david(a)sternlight.com> wrote: >One of the great friends of free speech on this list sent a forged cancel >message to the listbot to try to cancel my subscription. >The listbot, being reasonably well designed, ignored him and told me about >it, though I have no doubt less of a dunce could bring it off. >What a piece of slime! What do others think of this practice? Yeah, it's slimy. If somebody wanted to be rude to you personally, they could have sent you flames telling you to go away; if they wanted to be rude to you publicly, they could have imitated many others (:-), and if they simply wanted you to not exist they could have installed procmail or used a killfile-capable mailer like Pegasus or Commercial Eudora and defined you out of existence. If the listbot sends you their name, you could always, umm, escrow them or something..... (In a killfile, no one can hear you flame...) (I have tried to remove people from the list, if they've sent it mail asking to "Unsuscrive" or whatever, but at least for the last long while that's failed; you at least need a half-way attempt at forgery.) # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs # Confuse Authority!

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

17 Dec '03

At 9:25 PM 7/23/96, pjn(a)nworks.com wrote: >OK...A question for you all: > > If it is illegal (by our governments standards...) to export programs >like PGP, etc., and you can send the whole source code in a message >because that is also considered illegal, then could you send the code, >broken up into many pieces, and send THAT in Email, would that be >illegal? I don't think this has been spelled-out clearly in the ITARs, much less tested in court, but the intent is clearly to subvert the ITARS. Isomorphic to shipping out a piece of military hardware in pieces, wouldn't you say? And don't forget the "structuring" laws regarding the reporting of cash transactions over $10K. I don't think this has much promise. --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Brute-forcing DES
by koontz＠netapp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>At 3:06 AM 7/23/96, Steve Reid wrote: >>Did you consider the possibility of DES chips in your back-of-the-envelope >>calculations? They are hundreds of times faster than PCs. I don't know >>where to get them or how much they cost, though. I would expect they >>wouldn't be too expensive. The cash might be better spent on DES chips >>than on a prize. >Specialized DES-cracker chips have of course been considered. Actually hardware DES can be thousands of times faster than PCs. The problem with using commercially available DES chips is that you need to load keys, do encrypts and XOR the output with the ciphertext looking for all 0's or all 1's, in a serial fashion. Commercial DES chips don't have the facilities for doing comparisons or loading a new key while encrypting with the previous, not to mention the ability to increment the key value. >The advantage of the cracks done last year, the French and Australian >cracks, and the MIT cracks, were that the "entry costs" for joining the >project were low. >--Tim May The lowest cost entry for hardware crackers would probably be FPGA based (lower NRE). I could design one that would do say 2 - 4 million DES ops per second and cost less than 60 dollars (a PCI interface and cheap card). Anyway, hardware cracking can be done on a smaller scale than Wieners 30 Million DES ops/second, and it could still prove valuable. The good news is that software and hardware efforts are no more incompatible than using different performing machines. If someone steps forward with 1728 Giga DES ops machine, they can have as much of the key space as they can handle. I could probably manage a 100 M DES ops hardware machine before my wife wondered what I was spending the money for the new driveway on (and I would use reprogrammable FPGAs). I would also be inclined to run software on a couple of workstations at home, and an incidental PC or Alpha at work.

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Re: Netscape
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:52 AM 7/23/96 -0700, David Sternlight wrote: >At 5:09 PM -0700 7/22/96, Ted Anderson wrote: >> >>I must agree with Lucky. I am quite sure that even if Netscape was not >>begin distributed over the net, copies would still be uploaded to >>international sites by folks practicing Civil disobedience. > >To call simple lawbreaking by cowards working in secret "civil >disobedience" is to defame the name of Gandhi, King, and all the legitimate >protesters of modern history. Civil disobedience must be seen publicly, and >must be done by observable individuals. Masked men throwing stink bombs is >not civil disobedience--it's hooliganism. As usual, while you have at least the hint of a truth there, you manage to warp it just enough to be difficult to recognize. Historically, the the government has had nominal control of the media. The only civil disobedience that was _seen_ to be successful were the examples that made the news. And the "only" examples which made the news were the ones the government wanted to publicize. And the "only" examples the government wanted to publicize were the ones in which government "successfully" made examples of those doing it. And the "only" examples where the government achieved this were the ones where the perpetrator allowed himself to be caught. (my usages of the word, "only," are somewhat hyperbolic, of course. In practice, they are strong probabilities.) Your usage of the word, "legitimate" is quite slick (in the worst sense of the word, "slick"): The only ones you're going to want to acknowledge were "legitimate" are the ones that either are already successful, or the few you approve of and are still waiting to be successful. So, in a certain odd sense, it has been correct to say that the only "successful" (and thus, by your standards, "legitimate") civil disobedience has been that in which the perpetrator did it openly. And not surprisingly, anyone who does anything in such a way that he's not caught (and therefore, is also not subject to government-sponsored publicity) is a "coward" by your standards. How convenient! A rather sophisticated self-fulfilling prophecy. No wonder you've got some people fooled into believing you're a good debator. Fast-forward to 1996. Today, the traditional news media is beginning to be seriously bypassed by the computer networks, and this process is accelerating. No longer can the government keep enough control of the news media in order to help ensure that civil disobedience stays covered up unless they catch the protestor. Since everything else seems to be changing, it's no surprise that civil disobedience is, too. Today, civil disobedience still needs publicity, but to achieve that it now DOESN'T need the cooperation of the mainstream media, or implicitly the government. So a person doesn't need to be "caught" in order to win. The _results_ must be publicized, the person or people who did it doesn't. This represents a rather enormous change in the whole issue of civil disobedience, a change which is extraordinarily unwelcome among governments and statists alike. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Intel, Microsoft doing Internet Phone Software
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:47 AM 7/23/96 -0400, W Lee Nussbaum wrote: > > >On Mon, 22 Jul 1996, jim bell wrote: > >> If these people REALLY wanted to promote the use of Internet telephoning, >> what they'd do is implement a system where an Internet ISP could be "called" >> over the Internet by a person wanting to place an LD telephone call to that >> area, and (presumably using A/D and D/A techniques) rather than generating >> and receiving modem tones, woudl generate and transmit the audio over the >> telephone line. That way, the target of the call would simply need to pick >> up the telephone and talk, as he would ordinarily do: He wouldn't even need >> a computer. He might not even know the call was going over the Internet. > >...see IDT's Net2Phone product, at http://www.net2phone.com/; it does >what you describe. Two notes: (1) I haven't used it yet; (2: disclosure) >I'm now employed by IDT, though in a different area. Excellent! It seems that the one remaining piece in the puzzle is financial motivation. Many ISP's might hesitate to install a "feature" on their systems which has the prospect of tying up some of their lines, with no payback. As much as it pains me to face it, at this point what is needed is some system to pay the ISP's for maintaining and even upgrading their systems to make this whole thing practical. Currently, Sprint is proud to announce that they charge 10 cents a minute for off-peak calls. Could an ISP make money charging, say, 2 cents a minute for a similar service? The main marginal cost is that of an extra phone line, which is probably about $30 per month or $1 per day. Assuming the line is occupied 8 hours per day, that's 480 minutes, which means that the phone line costs 0.2 cents per minute. Even if other costs increase this by a factor of 5 or so, there should be nothing to prevent an ISP from making money off a 2 cent per minute charge or even less. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Flaws of Thinkers (Jefferson, Rand, Nietzsche, Voltaire, etc.)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:40 AM 7/23/96, bryce(a)digicash.com wrote: >I know a lot about Rand, and about her deep flaws as an >individual, especially in terms of treatment of her supporters, >but this is the first I've heard of this one. Perhaps Tim is >thinking of a play by Murray Rothbard called "Mozart Was a Red" >in which the Ayn Rand caricature insists that her followers >smoke. > >As for smoking being "proof" of man's dominance over nature, >Rand _did_ believe that in the sense of "demonstration" or >"symbol" but she did not believe that in the rigorous sense of >"proof". This was well-known to a bunch of us in the early 70s who were interested in Rand (and her extreme followers, known widely as "Randroids"). I think some of her essays in her Objectivist Newsletter had explained why smoking was essentially de rigeur. (By the way, at the time Rand was writing this stuff, doctors were recommending smoking as a digestive and health aid, and nearly everyone smoked. I don't condemn Rand for smoking, or for falling into the all-too-common practice of using "logic" to justify one's beliefs and practices.) Rothbard was a source for the smoking example, but not in a play (although he may have also used his knowledge in a play...I wouldn't know). Rothbard wrote an article for "Liberty," circa 1986-8, which is where I read the details. Also, I believe Barbara Branden's biography of Rand dealth with this, but I haven't read it in many a year. And there is this comment, from an admittedly off-beat source (http://www.zonpower.com/zonpower/book/chapters/chapter29.html) "Whatever the root of his irrationality, Dr. Peikoff's persona shrinks with his advocating force-backed intolerance as he expressed during his 1995 Ford Hall Forum lecture. Recall how Ayn Rand's life wastragically diminished by her irrational, deadly, "dot-of-light" glamorization of smoking. Her emotional, irrational denials of the narcotically addictive, physically destructive nature of tobacco smoking led her and some of her "caped" followers to the grave." --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Digital Watermarks (long, getting off-topic)
by Alex F 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Easy enough. > > - Unless somebody reversed-engineered it, filtered it, and re-stamped it. Never said that it would be fool proof :) > - The entertainment industry has a reputation of being paranoid Sometimes with good reason, just like software producers are paraniod about piracy. Though, the Ent. Ind. does tend to overreact. IMO the copyright laws that are currently in place are enough to protect against the forms of piracy that they are trying to protect themselves against. I really don't think that there is need for new legislation or potentially privacy invading practices at this point. The forgers of the copyright laws (at least as they relate to music) had incredible foresight. Basically, from the laws that were originally drafted (30's maybe? Then revised in the early '70's at least as far as public domain goes) both videos and CDs are protected. These were written when there were no CDs or videos. > Some of you may recall > the flap over DAT, which significantly reduced the consumer market > penetration (the industry itself uses them all over the place). The Ent. Ind. got what they wanted though. There are taxes, etc. (some sort of import restrictions anyway) that keep DAT player/recorder devices at around $700 per unit. By this time normally the prices *should* be down to like $200 (using the CD industry as a guide) DATs are used all over the industry because they are cheap (see below), and because going from analog tape to DAT for CD mastering is a million times easier then sending off reels of analog tape, even if the tape is a properly mixed down duplicate of the master. There are still track times, numbers, etc., etc. A HUGE pain in the ass for CD manufacturers, but easy to do on a one-off basis in the studio where the producer & artist can sit there and help mix, fix tracks, select times, indexes, etc., etc. It can all be done to a single DAT )(which would then be copied for safety) and set along with a time code sheet. > (you still > have the even-less-effective argument of the associated cover art not > being included or being scanned and duplicated with reduced signal > quality, unless the distribution is all on-line). Cover art is pretty easy to duplicate if you have access to a color laser printer. Just scan the original in at 300dpi, and print it out at the same resolution/size and you have it. Just don't scan it in as a .GIF :) (too few colors) > Probably not done that way. My guess is that the disk ID is assigned > to the disk at the time of manufacturing. At the point of purchase > the customer is forced to give name, address, ID, whatever. This is > then stored in a database > > - Would YOU want to be responsible for maintaining that database? It's > like maintaining a hardware store trying to maintain an ID on every > single screw and nail in inventory. You would run into the same problems if it were done by CC. Hopefully the industry will do some sort of a cost-analysis (an accurate one) and realize that they would spend more on this than they lose (esp. since they still wouldn't eliminate piracy, just make it a little more difficult). > - Nobody's going to try and do a higher-frequency encoding (I HOPE). While > the human ear cannot hear those frequencies directly, we have found out > that those higher-frequencies interact in such a way to influence the > sound waves that influence what the user can hear. Yes, that's true. Anyone ever hear of HAARP? :) Certain frequencies can affect the brain in certain ways (a guy by the name of Robert A Monroe, while maybe a little eccentric, has been using this method since the 50's to do things like keep people awake when they are sleepy, vice versa, etc.). Also the body. Your body parts resonate a certain frequencies. For example, there is a very low note (I believe that it is a B) that vibrates at the same frequency as your bowels. Play that note, and you loose control... :) (If anyone knows this frequency, PLEASE let me know. I'm serious :) ). This is the reason > there's still a debate between digital and analog recordings, and is > still a big reason a lot of artists still record on analog equipment > (in musical "fuzzy" terms, it's equated with the warmth of the sound, > sort of like the tube-amp vs. solid-state amp debate among some guitar > players, etc.) If somebody deliberately played with such frequencies, > the journalistic media would probably have a field day. Yes, there are > audio cancelling and other tricks that could be deployed, but no matter > what, you're still deliberately introducing signal noise I touched on that in my other posting. The real difference between analog vs. digital is actually 2 things; static and musical "overtones" (used to produce various distortion effects and feedback, for example. ANyone who has listened to Robin Trower, Hendrix, Van Halen, etc. knows). People *are* playing with these frequencies. It's known as COSM or Composite Object Sound Modeling, and apparently is fuzzier (as in fuzzy logic, not fuzzy sound) than cold sampling is. Companies like Roland and Line6 are playing with such things. Roland is really doing some amazing things with this technology. > If I remember correctly, there is plenty of room in the design of the > audio CD protocal to embed such information, just like you can embed > the timing and track number information. Yeah, that's something else too. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but I *think* it's like a 1Khz or 1 hz signal that signals this. At least it is for the start of the first track on a cd. In the manufacturing process, at least > - Well, the MASS market piraters are exactly the point. Well, let's face > it, if the industry controllers got their way, there would be no > second-hand market like garage sales - there IS money involved here > (witness the bizarre dealings with CD-rental stores that have shown up The thing is, there is no money lost, really. Think about it. In order for one CD to be bought at a garage sale, someone else had to buy it at a retail store. If the record companies were in the used CD business then there may be money lost, but otherwise. The place where real money is lost is sale of promo CDs (many say "Promotional copy. Not for sale" on them). Here the record company loses nothing. The artist loses big time. With the exception of Sony records, most record companies will only pay artists royalties on 85% of records sold. The other 15% is said to be "promotional material" which is a huge scam run by the recording industry to take advantage of the artists. These 15% are still paid for (manufacturing, etc.) by the artist, and are given away to radio stations, etc. There is where the real money is lost. The rest is lieing with numbers. Getting off topic, Alex F =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Alex F alexf(a)iss.net Marketing Specialist Internet Security Systems =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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Re: DES Optimization (Brute Force DES)
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> "Peter Trei" writes: > > The fastest general purpose, freely available des implementation I'm > > aware of is libdes. by Eric Young. With this, I can do a set_key in > > 15.8 us, and an ecb_encrypt in 95 us/block. That adds up to > > about 9,000 keytests/sec (this is on a 90 MHz P5, running NT). > > I'll point out that like most DES implementations, Eric's tries to > spend a lot of time in key setup to save time later on in > encryption/decryption. This tradeoff would probably be very different > if you didn't plan on trying more than one or two blocks of decryption > after getting a key. > > Perry Yep - with good optimization, the keygen and the des rounds get very close to each other in processing cost. Let's look at the steps involved (I'm refering to the DES description in Schneier, 2nd ed, p 270-278). I've not yet coded these optimizations, so this may be subject to revision. I'm assuming a known plaintext attack on a single 64 bit block, ECB mode. What we want to obtain is the key (which was presumably also used to encode interesting data which we can't read) First of all, we can move the initial and final permutes (tables 12.1 and 12.8) completely out of the testing loop. These have to done only once per run, and thus are effectively zero cost. Similarly, we can eliminate the key permutation (table 12.2), and iterate the permuted 56 bit key. If we get at hit, we invert the key permutation and add back the parity bits to get the original key. In the DES round The S-box and P-box steps can be combined into a single 48->32 bit permutation. So, per round (there are 16), we now have: 1. copy 32 bit sub-block to use as 'other' half in next round. 2. expansion permutation (32 -> 48) 3. xor with appropriate subkey. 4. perform the s-p permutation. (48->32) 5. xor with 'other' half from previous round. The key scheduling can be done in parallel with the rounds, since we're only planning on using each key once. However, on the Pentium it may be more efficient to do it before the des rounds, due to register starvation. Generating the subkeys is actually quite painful. You have to rotate the 56 bit key as two 28 bit halves, by one or two bits depending on the round, and then do a 56-> 48 bit permutation to generate the subkey. This step needs to be done 16 times. In a regular DES implementation, you generate the key schedules once at the start, and reuse them for each block, so there is little to be gained by optimzing this step. In a keysearch situation it's a different matter. Optimizing the permutations: DES was originally designed for hardware implementation, where permutation is a simple matter of braiding the wires between the input and output. It's a lot harder in software. I'm aware of two basic approaches: 1. Algorithmic: Analyse the permutation table to find bits which get shifted in the same direction, by the same number of bits, and arrange a series of SHIFTs, ANDs, and ORs to generate the desired permutation. This is essentially a geometry problem. 2. Lookup: Create tables for the permutation. While a permutation with n bits of input requires 2^n entries (each the size of the output data) if done as a single table, it's possible to break the permutation into several smaller tables, at increased processing time. This is a classic speed vs space tradeoff, with a big step if your tables are too large to fit into cache (and even bigger if they go to virtual memory) Example: A straight 32 -> 32 bit permutation: If done as one table, it would have 2^32 entries, and take about 16 Gbytes. If broken up into 4 tables, each of which dealt with 8 bits of the input, it would take 4096 bytes total. However, the calculation would require extracting the four eight bit subkeys from the input, doing four lookups, and ORing the four results together to get the final output. A 32 bit perm could also be done with two tables, but they would occupy half a Mb. The S-P step and the compression step of the key schedule are probably faster by lookup than by algorithm. I'm not sure about the expansion permutation, which is very regular. The size and number of tables used is going to depend a lot on cache size and available memory - for example, the rotates in the key scheduling can be eliminated if I'm willing to maintain 16 key compression tables (one for each round). I strongly expect that the whole key testing loop can fit into the 8k L1 code cache. The lookup tables *may* fit into the L2 cache. If anyone has any other optimizations, I'd like to hear about them. Peter Trei trei(a)process.ocm Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation http://www.process.com trei(a)process.com

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Kids and Computer Privacy Was Re: No more stupid gun thread ...
by Scott Schryvers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:24 PM 7/22/96 -0700, you wrote: >Ok. This thread has gone on long enough and covered just about every >point except the one which I originally made in my first response, >which is that I abhor the idea that kids should carry weapons (of any >sort) to school as standard equipment. In fact, I abhor the idea >that kids should carry weapons at school for any reason. > >Enough said. > >I do not care to discuss: > >1. Should kids have any weapons at any time? > >2. Should kids have guns (specifically guns)? > >3. Should kids know how to operate weapons of any sort? > >If any of you really really have to discuss this issue, let's spare >the rest of the list and send me E-Mail directly. > >Thanks! > >Ern > Should kids have crypto? [weapons] Should parents teach their kids crypto at an early age? Should kids have a right to privacy? If yes, should there be a limit to the privacy they hold? Under Itar crypto is a weapon. If a kid were to bring a disk containing pgp to school could they be expelled for carrying a weapon? Should children's legal rights be taught at school at an early age?

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emscrypt 0.01 ALPHA
by Matt Carpenter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I finally managed to find some time to do a little testing of emscrypt and make some of the changes that were suggested here earlier. It is still rather ugly and I haven't added many of the features/capabilities I hope to eventually implement. But I'm making it available so that people can play with it if they want. It looks like I'm going to be very busy for at least the next month trying to finish up the work for my master's degree, so I probably won't be making any major changes for a while. emscrypt's purpose is to automatically run PGP signed scripts received by e-mail and return the results to the submitter. emscrypt is a heavily mutated version of morepgp, originally by Jason Steiner and modified by Greg Spencer. Please realize that this program has NOT undergone extensive testing, so you may encounter strange behaviour. Make sure you read the documentation that exists. Using this program may make your system insecure, especially if you don't follow the installation procedure carefully. Use at your own risk. You should be able to find emscrypt and some documentation at: http://www.bmen.tulane.edu/~carpente Look under the "Other random projects or possibly useful stuff" heading. In order to try out emscrypt you need the following: * Perl -- emscrypt is written in Perl. * PGP 2.6.2 -- Other versions may work, but I haven't tested them and emscrypt relies strongly on knowing the format of the PGP output messages. * Procmail -- For passing incoming mail to emscrypt. This can be accomplished in other ways, but at this point I haven't tried any of them. If you don't have procmail you can still play with emscrypt by piping messages to it manually. I strongly suggest you do this anyway, to make sure you trust emscrypt to answer incoming mail. Here are the major things that have changed with emscrypt since I described it here a while ago: There are now two required headers which must be included in the body of the signed message: 'Reply-To:' and 'PGP-Key-Fingerprint:'. Both must appear before the beginning of the script. The beginning of the script is considered to be anything other than the above headers, blank lines, or lines that begin with '::' but that are otherwise empty. Duplicate headers will generate an error and prevent the script from executing. Case within the headers is not important. (You are free to use eLiTE d00dz capitalization techniques, just don't try to use kRe8yv sP3lliNg5.) 'Reply-To:' must be followed by a valid e-mail address, otherwise you won't get your results. (emscrypt will also recognize a 'Request-Remailing-To:' header in place of 'Reply-To:'. I added this so that emscrypt could be treated as a "remailer". The idea is that you could use software such as premail to automate the generation of messages going to emscrypt, so that you don't have to do the signing/encrypting manually. Then you could just send a script to yourself, "chaining" it through your emscrypt "remailer". But I don't think this will work without slight modifications to the remailer message generating programs, since emscrypt requires the 'Request-Remailing-To:' header within the signed body of a message (it would also be nice if the 'PGP-Key-Fingerprint' header could be automagically included)). The 'PGP-Key-Fingerprint:' header gives the fingerprint of the key used to sign the message and which will also be used to encrypt the results. It must also be included within the signed body of the message. Most of the other changes involved minor debugging and general clean-up (not that I consider it clean now). I also improved the error handling a little, but it needs more work, too. Right now emscrypt generally tries to generate, encrypt, and mail an error report if things go wrong. If that doesn't work, then it saves an error message to a log file. If you find any problems, please let me know. Comments, suggestions, etc. are also welcome. Thanks, - --Matt - -- mcarpent(a)mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMfXlaijtJAMyBnp9AQHAdAf+MQ/ZroKoLeYyQDYabVrIq1eLSQB6vpr+ 2tXu63wDbcUeFoeSFNx6Sar7DNtAJyJUlwVcVKlb5SOuYR/8aFDvAnIYuQLPfdXd xXjC4iv+Hh3hNx4ibeyAB4xbFmDYAMB19zEf6nhmJdxR03oFXP+Qfx2m/aN/LDKZ zVSjtOs/ujTa6ltP6r/9x1vdiqmSNuSCNLvL/f4YulfdzR8frF0uLyLmiDH6mUpm etKxSpIg4ZI+iy1YvvSd+FtA0F3XSziaLEepx4X8gYjZKP0YXPTEMGhTeWj1o6bP yl06KUIRTL5k56P0xnW2MezGN5c0Cz2W9TEa9NBbHxY1DgSTDWa3sg== =DTpY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: DES brute force? (was: Re: Borders *are* transparent)
by Dan Bailey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If we choose a plaintext/ciphertext pair carefully, we can easily save ourselves some work (50%) while still making the attack a credible demonstration. The idea is to use each trial encryption twice. In _Differential Cryptanalysis of the Data Encryption Standard_, Biham and Shamir note the following, known as the complementation property of DES: if T = DES(P, K) where T is ciphertext, P plaintext, and k key, then: T' = DES(P', K') where T', P', and K' are the bitwise complement of the above. Now the interesting part. If two pairs (P1,T1) and (P2,T2) are available with P1 = P2' or T1 = T2', then an attacker can restrict his search to only the keys with LSB = 0. The attacker runs through the remaining 2^55 keys (with LSB = 0) and tests the results against both T1 and T2'. Since testing for equality is much faster than performing the actual encryption, time savings is on the order of 50%. Just a thought on how to save some cycles. Dan

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Re: Digital Watermarks (long, getting off-topic)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(My comments are really minor quibbles, based on my longtime use of DAT machines, which I now have three of.) At 2:19 PM 7/23/96, Alex F wrote: >The Ent. Ind. got what they wanted though. There are taxes, etc. >(some sort of import restrictions anyway) that keep DAT player/recorder >devices at around $700 per unit. By this time normally the prices >*should* be down to like $200 (using the CD industry as a guide) As I said, I have three DAT machines. They are complicated machines, having lots of moving parts and precise tolerances. (And they are prone to break!) CD players are vastly simpler. I'm not at all surprised that prices have remained at about the $400 level for DAT decks, and about the same for DAT portables. After all, camcorders, which use much the same technology, have also remained at about the same price. And I don't think the SCMS code had too much to do with mass-acceptance. Most comsumers, according to available figures, *buy* C-90 cassette tapes, and do not make their own. (That _you_, the CP list reader, may use your cassette deck to make tapes has little to do with the vast numbers of cassette users out there do...most don't know how to record with their cassette decks.) Pre-recorded DAT tapes were available for a while...they did not sell. I believe this was because DAT machine purchasers were sophisticated and new how to make CD-to-DAT copies, with or without SCMS. Thus, the failure of DAT as a consumer medium (not to mention the much-hyped MD and DCC formats) probably is due to other reasons, including the mechanical issues, the lack of a real need for consumer DAT, and the confusion over new emerging formats. --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: A Snake-Oil FAQ
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed Jul 24 00:10:54 1996 > Honestly, this boycott campaign looks out of place on Cypherpunks, at > least to me. I mean, we are for freedom of speech, aren't we? > Sternlight is talking about on-topic things. How come that renowned > defenders of freedom of speech resorted to name calling and attempts to > push their opponent out of the public forum? > (cheer) I don't agree with David Sternlight; frankly, I doubt very many of us agree with David Sternlight. But if we're going to start plonking just on the basis of a periodic rant, after he goes Perry goes, and Tim goes, and before long there's no list. Now to keep things interesting, somebody wanna subscribe Dorothy Denning to the list? Might be fun :) dave - ---- David E. Smith POB 324 Cape Girardeau MO USA 63702 dsmith(a)prairienet.org http://www.prairienet.org/~dsmith send mail of 'send pgp-key' subject for my PGP public key "I'm only a social smoker, just a few packs a day really" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Automagically signed with Pronto Secure for Windows. iQEVAwUBMfWwaTVTwUKWHSsJAQHmAwf/XkwZZtAbymiSni4L8N6D6qW75W2B/Hgv yuPX0uCoXnBmvUXzq6RS7zNN0A1vtgXhCgzgyYY+1/1PRAAoQAd8q7evX1K+rTVe 1MmlOfJWFHJG9q0tHc45LONagW1m0eAp9Z9fkO4NRhGpybfWDCZKwtClbaLiAdoA 86lJnNRacjEHf1dAAHc/1dibJz+6617nfgLkea0OVbLICIsSpkc3PJLkFE9jjK2a g+5CXJ8oXg4bKlEw7QoefagXYsM9o6PF+MHIDVT/pZnfoVmGoI9+3BYHkByXh/vQ 8M+w6hZu4X50zzxCx/6lDvzfd1zccmHvJAsx6GXf4VGUp6lIw+lfCg== =KXCp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Bare fibers
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

h > > Doesn't that make it vulnerable (detectable) to Tempest attacks? h > > Harka rw> No. rw> Transmitting light via fiber doesn't emit EM. Light is electromagnetic :-) rw> Anyway, the original post, as I recall, was about keeping sensitive data rw> on a second hard drive, connected via (very thin, therefore harder to rw> notice) fiber. Tempest monitoring was not a factor. rw> -r.w. I assume that if you've got a fiber hanging from your PC, and thugs come in to steal/confiscate/forfeitize your PC, that they're bright enough to notice it and maybe to follow it. Thugs who want your information will follow it to find information; thugs who just want to resell your hardware will follow it to find more hardware. I had initially assumed that the mention of fiber optics was in the context of "Infrared transmitter on the PC, fiber optic sticking out of the wall to receive the IR and transmit it to a hidden detector." or something silly like that. If you want to hide a small PC in your attic/wall/etc and use the newer faster IR stuff for clandestine backups, and have a Real Operating System so you can run it in the background (since your disk drive is presumably much faster than IR), I suppose you could do that. The main use of TEMPEST here is to detect backup systems hidden in the attic that they hadn't noticed. Hiding it in your stereo system doesn't protect it from honest thieves, who might also want to resell your stereo, and info thieves have been known to seize anything even resembling computer equipment, such as Mozart CDs. You could also hide the computer in your kitchen cabinets like one Famous Cypherpunk, but you'd have to use a thinner bundle of cables than he does to connect the monitors and keyboards :-) # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs # Confuse Authority!

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RE: Distributed DES crack
by koontz＠netapp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I'd like to see a very general hardware processing power equivalence table. >For example, 1 MasPar equals how many Pentiums. One MasPar MP2 (4K processors) could run 300,000 crypt(3) crack attempts per second (a password checker). That should give you 6 or 7 million brute force key attempts per second. Unfortunately the only way to show an equivalance for a particular problem is to have both machines work on the same problem. (Perhaps we could manage to break a DES key in the course of executing a new benchmark?)

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the VTW---FBI Connection (fwd)
by Sharma 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am asking for some verification that you (cypherpunks) have something to do with this before I forward it anywhere. I looked at the vertexgroup and so-oregon webpages, and there is no investigative journalism there that I was able to find. Please get back to me soon. Thanks, sharma sharma(a)aa.net >X-URL: <URL:http://www.vertexgroup.com> >X-URL: <URL:http://www.program.com> >X-URL: <URL:http://www.so-oregon.com> > >>Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 20:51:23 -0600 >>To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >>From: nobody(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu (Anonymous) >> >>We have received information that VTW is run and supported by the FBI, >>which we have suspected for reasons listed here. >> >>I) They appear to have no financial support or funding source. They >>do not accept donations. They have no corporate funds. And yet they >>appear to be a thriving business. >> >>II) They are secretive about their location, and do not seem to have >>a headquarters. The address listed in the NIC is a vacant lot in of >>all places Brooklyn, NY. They do not have a listed telephone. >> >>III) On a tip from a "friend" we learned that the power leader behind VTW >>is a cleancut man with the unusual name "Shabbir M. Safdar." Not exactly >>a common name. Several people say they've met him. Our "friend" says >>that Mr. Safdar is in reality an agent of the FBI. >> >>IIII) We didn't believe this without external verification. So we called >>the Brooklyn office of the FBI and asked for Agent Safdar. No such person. >>I called the Washington office. No such person. Checked if there is >>any agent named Safdar. They don't give out this info. Then we tried to find >>ANY public records on a Safdar, with no luck. No driver's license in NY, >DC, NJ, >>etc. No phone, etc. Odd that such a person does not exist and yet runs a >>"human rights" organization? Then Alice called the NY FBI office. Asked for >>Agent Safdar. Guess what? "He's not in. Can I take a message". No message, >>thanks. He'll get the message all right. >> >>Now the big question: What is the FBI trying to do getting all these >>names? What else has "VTW" been doing? And what other organizations like >>them are there? Who else is in on it? What does this say about EPIC, CDT, EFF? >>Are Blaze and Schneier dupes, or willing participants? What about their >>ISP? I think we are all owed an explanation. This is serious. Maybe FOIA or >>a lawsuit before they burn the files. >> >>What do you want to bet "VTW" quietly fades away after a few prefunctory >>denials, and gets replaced by another organization in due course? >> >>Faithfully, >> >>Net reporter team Alice and Bob >>

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RE: Distributed DES crack
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:40 PM 7/23/96 PDT, koontz(a)netapp.com (Dave Koontz) wrote: > > I'd like to see a very general hardware processing power equivalence table. > > For example, 1 MasPar equals how many Pentiums. > >One MasPar MP2 (4K processors) could run 300,000 crypt(3) crack attempts >per second (a password checker). That should give you 6 or 7 million >brute force key attempts per second. Interesting - thanks for the result. Do you know how tightly tuned the crack implementation was (e.g. straight C with MasPar optimizer, hand-tuned assembler, etc.)? Since the MasPar has a large number of very small processors, I'd expect it to be better at bit-twiddling than conventional processors. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs # Confuse Authority!

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Re: DES-Busting Screen Savers?
by Steve Reid 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On the subject of choosing keys randomly, rather than dividing up the keyspace... This seems like a very good idea to me. One potential problem is actually choosing the random keys. Have to be able to get entropy at a fast rate, and/or use a good PRNG. Both of these things would take time away from the actuall cracking (more time than just incrementing the key). And if a weak PRNG is used in order to save time, it's possible that it might favour certain keys and thus interfere with the attempt. Any ideas for a fast and good PRNG? ===================================================================== | Steve Reid - SysAdmin & Pres, EDM Web (http://www.edmweb.com/) | | Email: steve(a)edmweb.com Home Page: http://www.edmweb.com/steve/ | | PGP (2048/9F317269) Fingerprint: 11C89D1CD67287E68C09EC52443F8830 | | -- Disclaimer: JMHO, YMMV, TANSTAAFL, IANAL. -- | ===================================================================:)

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