December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re:appropriate algorithm for application
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cerridwyn Llewyellyn <ceridwyn(a)wolfenet.com> writes: > I need an algorithm/protocol that is capable of encrypting numerous > files with separate keys, but there also needs to be a master key > that will be able to decrypt all of them. Is there such a system > that is relatively secure? I'd prefer the system to be as secure > as possible, but in this application, security is secondary to > functionality. You can get the basic functionality you require by using a regular hybrid PKE system (pubkey encrypts symmetric session key) and encrypting the session key with the public key of a "master key" as well. For example, assuming a user A and a master key C you just have the program A uses to encrypt files operate in a manner similar to that used by PGP and other public-key encryption systems [pubkeyA(sessionkey),IDEA(sessionkey,data)] except in addition to the pubkeyA(sessionkey) which encrypts the random key used to encrypt the actual data you add a masterpubkeyC(sessionkey) section to the beginning of the file as well. The resulting data packet is [pubkeyA(sessionkey),masterpubkeyC(sessionkey),IDEA(sessionkey, data)] This system is as secure as the public-key system used for encryption and would actually be fairly easy to hack in to PGP, although the modified PGP messages which contain the master key information would not be usable by regular PGP. jim

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Re: e$: Watching the MacRubble Bounce
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:01 PM 8/6/96, Martin Minow wrote: >Cypherpunks as a spectator sport becomes interesting when a several >intelligent, articulate, people start a productive rant. Emphasis >on "productive." Unfortunately, this rant is rapidly degenerating >into an emotional bickering between people who are capable of >accomplishing much more. Note that I had made no mention of this exchange with VM on the list. I had not echoed my "Mac is dead" points, and had not bad-mouthed the "Mac Crypto" thing. However, when my private e-mail to VM was commented upon, in a not so thinly disguised form, and when Bob H. made it clear he'd been privy to my e-mail, I felt justified in setting the record straight on my views, as expressed in my e-mail to Vinnie. (It was not, being an e-mail note, meant to be a closely-reasoned and footnoted summary of Apple's problems, just a statement of why I had no interest in giving a kind of pep talk to Apple folks.) As to whether it's appropriate as a thread here on Cypherpunks, hey, there's a "delete" key on most machines. Again, I don't consider the Mac to be dead, at least not for several years. The Amiga lives on, and it never had even a fraction of the peak market share of the Mac. However, the focus of crypto has clearly moved well away from the Mac. I noted where the emphasis needs to be, for maximum impact. Namely, Eudora, Netscape, and other mail and Web programs. It's a basic fact of life--think about it--that people on this list and elsewhere are _not_ asking what Gil Amelio's stance on cryptography is. They don't care, as Gil Amelio, Heidi Roizen, Guy Kawasaki, and all the rest are simply not in the critical path. What people care about is what plans Bill Gates, Jim Clarke, and Jim Bidzos have, or their factotums, as these are the folks who will likely shape the commercial product landscape. (As to why I don't switch, I have much time and money invested in Macs, and they still work. As I said in one of my notes to Vinnie, I mainly use Eudora Pro for mail, Netscape Navigator for browsing, and a handful of other programs. There would be no compelling gain were I to scrap my Mac investment and buy a Pentium Pro and Windows NT.) --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: Internal Passports
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:06 AM 8/6/96, Duncan Frissell wrote: >At 07:37 PM 8/5/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: > >>But the law says, these days, that I must verify the >>legality of workers *if* they appear to be dark-skinned, Mexican, Latin, or >>the like. I say "if" because there are no requirements in general for ... >Naughty naughty Tim. You're violating the Immigration Control and >Nationality Act of 1986. You are supposed to check all employee's IDs even >your own childrens' and fill out that I-9 form. You have to verify identity >and right to work using a menu of documents ranging from passports and SS >cards to Driver's licenses and "American Indian Tribal Documents" (I gotta >get me some of them). And there are special provisions to punish >discrimination against those who appear foreign. After all, there are loads >of illegal Canadians and Irish here. People are always coming from the >third world counties. <G> > >The law also required that a commission study whether or not the "foreign >appearing" were suffering discrimination because of the law and it reported >a few years later that sure enough, they were. On this last point, hardly surprising. After all, the "punishment" (risk, cost) for not checking an obviously-Caucasoid person of apparent American origins is effectively zero, while the punishment for hiring a Mexican who may have slipped over the border and gotten a forged credential is high. (Employers here in California have been penalized for hiring Mexicans whose credentials turned out to be phony...I guess the employer was supposed to have known this by some sort of ESP.) Simpler to avoid hiring Mexicans and other dusky folks. The law of unintended consequences... BTW, I am _not_ a supporter of the Prop. 187 issue in California. Nor do I in any way support the "deputization" of employers as agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. This is comparable to deputizing employers as agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency...though many companies have bowed to pressure from the narcs and "D.A.R.E." lobby and have drug-testing programs, they are not (yet) required by law to test all employees, except in some particular job funcitons, etc. As far as I am concerned, this country has never moved toward the general concept of a "work permit" (permission by the government to get a job), and it is a real danger of this anti-illegal-immigrant hysteria that we will soon see the effective equivalent of "work permits." This will of course give the authorities even more power. We're getting closer and closer to the world of "The Shockwave Rider." --Nicky Halflinger HOW TO MAKE A PIPE BOMB: "Buy a section of metal water pipe 1/2 by 6 inches long, threaded on both ends. Buy two metal caps to fit. These are standard items in hardware stores. Drill a 1/16th hole in the center of the pipe. This is easy with a good drill bit. Hanson is a good brand to use. Screw a metal cap tightly on one end. Fill the pipe to within 1/2 inch of the top with black powder. Do not pack the powder. Don't even tap the bottom of the pipe to make it settle. You want the powder loose. For maximum explosive effect, you need dry, fine powder sitting loose in a very rigid container." (more information at http://sdcc13.ucsd.edu/~m1lopez/pipe.html, or by using search engines)

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CRN on Crypto Roadblock
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Computer Reseller News, 8-05-96, p. 51 Channel feels pinch of export limitations -- VARs Hit Encryption Roadblock By Charlotte Dunlap & Deborah Gage Could 40 bits of code cost you that multimillion-dollar bid? Andrew Sheppard, president of Branford, Conn.-based Espion Inc., just returned from a frustrating business trip to Europe, where he said he lost a number of accounts with financial institutions because he could not deliver software with more than 40 bits of encryption key length. Sheppard, who recently tried to sell his encryption wares to clients in Europe, said he lost business to competitors offering stronger encryption. "There is a real demand for this type of product, and yet I find myself thwarted at every single opportunity by this stupid law, which everyone realizes is unnecessary," Sheppard said. Sheppard said potential clients that turned him down during his recent trip included Banco Santander, a Madrid-based bank; the London office of Credit Suisse; Logica Systems of London; and the financial reporting arm of Reuters' news service in London. As the trend toward networking-sensitive information grows, woes tied to encryption export limitations are spreading to the VAR community. The dilemma of shipping overseas anything other than light versions of security software is starting to sabotage the efforts of Internet resellers. Because 40 bits of code is considered to be breakable by an elementary hacker, major corporations with data to protect are reluctant to trust U.S. technology. So, U.S. resellers are being turned away while multinational corporations turn to foreign technologies. The debate between business and the U.S. government about export limitations is getting increasingly heated with the growth of the Internet. The Pro-Code Bill, which aims to relax export restrictions, has just been introduced, and prominent Silicon Valley executives are trekking to Washington regularly to argue the case. Jim Bidzos, president and chief executive of encryption market leader RSA Data Security Inc., Redwood City, Calif., has spent a lot of time in Washington. "The big picture in terms of what's happening is all of our communications and document storage is moving from paper and filing cabinets to the Internet and disk drives. We need crypto technology in order to protect this," he said. But resellers are getting discouraged and do not see a quick resolution with law makers. Meanwhile, they are losing business at a staggering rate. Norm Yamaguchi, director of sales for RSA master reseller Secure Distribution Inc., said he could have tripled the size of his million-dollar company this year if it were not for U.S. export laws dictating a maximum 40-bit key encryption length to his clients' international offices. "To say this law is causing me problems is a massive understatement," Yamaguchi said. The reseller currently is in talks with Price Waterhouse to get them to standardize on Oakland, Calif.-based Secure Distribution's security products, but will likely lose the contract because of the 40-bit key length limitation. Resellers' fear of losing business to foreign players is not paranoia, either. The Business Software Alliance has identified 500 encryption products that can be purchased in foreign countries. Information about the stronger foreign technology can be obtained easily through the Internet. "The laws are punishing U.S. companies, and we're losing business to foreign countries because they can offer the same thing. The law is not holding back the flow of encryption, it is just holding back U.S. companies from making money," he added, calling it a "lose-lose situation." Reseller Al Hill, vice president of engineering for Successful Systems Solutions, Rancho Cordova, Calif., has to surrender part of his solutions services in order to keep his foreign clients. "We ship units to England, Hong Kong and Singapore, and we have to downgrade the software [to 40 bits] on all of them. They were rather upset but smart enough to realize they could upgrade the security themselves," he said, adding that he has lost business because he could not complete projects himself. "We have to make sure the APIs in the software are available so people overseas can tie them into their [security] applications," he said. Similarly, Dave Johnson, senior account manager of Precision Computers Inc., Portland, Ore., said he lost an account with a multinational company with offices in France because "it became too troublesome for them to implement U.S. products because of the legal problems." Uncle Sam's View U.S. companies and civil libertarians have been battling the government since 1991, when the proposal of the Clipper Chip first surfaced. At that time, the government proposed splitting the encryption keys and holding a portion of them in escrow, giving law enforcement officials with court orders a back door through which to conduct electronic surveillance. To date, the U.S. government has budged little from its original idea. The Clipper Chip idea was squelched, but the government refuses to concede that strong encryption is not a munition because it believes national security is at stake. In recent weeks, Vice President Al Gore proposed a compromise: The government would extend the types of software that could be exported, perhaps to include healthcare or insurance instead of just finance, and allow long keys if countries where the United States has government-to- government agreements could hold keys in escrow. A 24-member technical advisory committee is expected to produce a blueprint for establishing the Federal Key Management Infrastructure in September. The Vendor's View Software executives remain disgruntled with the government's progress. "Do we really want government- to-government agreements?" asked Eric Schmidt, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Chief Technology Officer. "The U.S. has protections that other countries don't. France, for example, is noted for industrial espionage." Microsoft Corp. Senior Vice President Craig Mundie said an escrow system would create an expensive bureaucracy, adding: "This should really be described as a key-leasing system. This will create a huge new business in extracting keys from the public. If you want to make sure that your key is not compromised by law enforcement officials, you're going to need insurance. There will be a whole service industry around keys." Vendors also argue that the government's reasoning is not legitimate. "The current controls do not keep encryption out of the hands of the criminals. They keep it out of the hands of individuals and corporations," said Sybase Inc. Director of Data and Communications Security Development Thomas Parenty. Sun, Microsoft and other companies would like complete deregulation of encryption. Three bills that would lift government restrictions and prohibit mandatory key escrow are working their way through Congress, although none are likely to pass this year. NEXT WEEK: Measuring the level of difficulty in cracking code. [End] Thanks to LG.

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Re: Stop the presses -- Anti-terrorism bill not that bad
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:20 PM 8/4/96 -0400, Hallam-Baker wrote: > It would be entirely foolish for the crypto > lobby to allow themselves to be tied to the NRA. The NRA has > no choice but to support civil liberties, there is no reason > why the wider civil liberties movement needs to support the > NRA. First they came for the communists ..... --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: Bombs & bomb threats in LA
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:15 AM 8/5/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: > The molecular difference between TNT and picric acid is a methyl group, > weight 15 (on TNT) substituted for a hydroxyl, weight 17 (on > picric acid.) If there is a difference, it is a very small one. Picric acid is easier for amateurs to make than TNT. It has the same energy per unit mass as TNT, but it's destructive power is greater because of the substantially higher velocity of detonation. It is far less predictable and far easier to detonate than TNT. Also TNT has the advantage that it can be melted and poured into molds, and it is cheaper to manufacture in large quantities. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: FAA to require transponders on all aircraft passengers
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>At 3:21 PM 8/3/96, David Lesher wrote: >>They are going to hang one of these on EVERY bag? >>At what per-unit cost? Probably low enough, at least if they can reuse the tags (should be easy to find them, since they're transponder-equipped.) My guess about how they'll be used is to replace the bar-code stickers used by many baggage-handling systems - they'll stick one on at checkin, corresponding to the number on your ticket, track them when they load them on the plane (so they know that all the bags correspond to people expected to get on the plane, as well as knowing the bags are getting on the correct plane), and track the tickets to make sure that all the people expected to get on the plane actually do get on (I think they use bar-code readers or OCR today, and that'll probably continue.) Tim> "bag escrow" will allow other agencies--such as DEA--to sniff Also useful for the baggage checkers at the baggage claim, who'll be able to check that your baggage tag belongs to your ticket, and that nobody sneaks baggage out unchecked, either stealing it or trying to pick up the contraband. Of course they'll _have_ to check all the bags to collect the transponders. David>>THEN think of the RFI problems..... Tim> The RFI problems are actually the least of the concerns, Tim> given the "code space" technology which is possible. The RFI issue isn't just telling one transponder from another, it's interference with the airplane's electronics. The devices will be a bit quieter than your laptop, since they presumably only broadcast in response to polls - probably quieter than pagers but noisier than digital watches. Bill # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Defuse Authority!

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Re: Cookies on Microsoft Explorer?
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:14 AM 8/6/96 -0700, David.K.Merriman.-.webmaster(a)cygnus.com, wrote: >I have IE3 configured to ask me for permission to accept a cookie. Yes, >some sites send (n!)+1 cookies during a session. If they send too many, I >personally move on to another site, after sending them email (!). If the site sends you *LOTS* of cookies with no expire date, then they have probibly compiled their Apache server with the mod_cookie module. The cookies are only used by the log files and i am willing to bet that most people who have that option compiled in do not even read the logs. --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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Re: crypto CD source
by Remo Pini 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed Aug 07 08:04:50 1996 That's all well (your diverse site/mirror-suggestions), but my local phonecompany charges by the minute. If I download the lets say 500MB for the CD, I'm broke! Does anyone have direkt access to the sites and can make a DAT-backup? (In some format I can read: WinNT Backupprog)? Thanks, Remo - --------< 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 iQEVAwUBMggyBhFhy5sz+bTpAQGLjQf9EX3/mJQa6woKTZN5uz8dma8Cpv/PFQTC zsV5h0pjDLiA0RdIZexPJMfTNw+ZFyPdNkma9PgB60kGf2CrNrqLlBWv5XmZQ2HH kTqcuou2mHm/JeJv5m8v7Vckm8BmTtvdpL2mWK8pG0iB5fWbwiTo9VkyCrwfq/q+ BoAaGS4zkNOTuTlmWo/zwkheEVdV5gRjwI+IyHCTQMZ9rFRqLvmOYxClcEQ0X7C4 X5pFIZgaxw7u953MNbnmyeGVwpHqahhi8mn8mblKpVG2KIxR17lC9lKcZFygTAqA eddDvrCnCNcyH4zrWksOvPCZfqQbH5mBuFskxjSC1ZXgz+1ZoGKpOw== =veJq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [NOISE] Stop the presses -- Anti-terrorism bill not that bad
by drose＠azstarnet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hallam-Baker wrote: >First off Alan posted private mail to the list. In this case mail >that was more than simply personal. > >Secondly unless Alan withdraws his allegations I will bring proceedings >against him for libel. While I accept his right to free speech I do >not accept that he has a right to attempt to restrict mine with his >threats of deportation. > > > Phill Hallam-Baker > Oh goody! Another Hallam-Baker-generated p*ssing contest. Perhaps you fellows should settle your differences with a bet. Oops, I forgot. The good "Doc" dishonors his wagers with a series of fantastic and infantile "misunderstandings".

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Re: THE WORLD IS SCREWD UP
by Remo Pini 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed Aug 07 08:16:48 1996 > THIS WORLD IS SREWED UP i hate my life so mue hobbeys makeing time pipe > bommbs so what is this all about huh what the fuck "anti terrisiom bill" > damn sad ok so what does this mean FREE COUNTRY hahahaha i laugh when i > hear that term there is no free country and we never have a wright to > privesy u know man this sux so much....... oh and to the government u > can kiss my ass And here I was thinking my English sucks! By the way, keyboard do have keys like ".,;:". :-) - --------< 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 iQEVAwUBMgg01BFhy5sz+bTpAQFz9ggArJOn4g8i/xREcEAjYXAO5oB+Jt6wUox1 dMh9GYpoYiYkb2qzpvQ9kK7JRMbehZRqhsltPQ7ydn1hNs/v+O+M4MG6I0FoIJg4 mmpEY7DDfLmqyPUAgEFq07re3pGraeteLFdSTlDvjxiBNw2+0K1EjQWHVVgxT/2p CKeKW8/v/dSA68TFVFcBlYKbNYZREUeEhTLhFLmuXXXkJcC3orrO0ODaENT7MWUz o1uCPq0v+XM+WMhNji5dIkVN6/SJQ0QT1MjocCmOFuMAa/UW8lwX2BPqBvI3K1ao EOb8hHDut+yMExRI2X6rtC3u8lgvm/8i58BBc1IncuI1Oxgn1ivmDw== =hwr+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Apple people on the list
by jon＠taurus.apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A quick response to Tim May's recent mail. I'm an Apple employee. I'm on the cypherpunks list, but I'm not sure if Tim would consider me active. I read cypherpunks on one of the edited versions (the "frogfarm" edition, many thanks to its editor, Damaged Justice), but I subscribe to and read Coderpunks. I do, however write software and papers on security and crypto. I have done so for over six years. One of the reasons I subscribe to Cypherpunks is, in fact, Tim May. Whenever I see something he's written, I read it, which is more than I can say for most of Cypherpunks. When I was getting all of Cypherpunks, I used Tim's messages as navigation buoys. I am disappointed that Tim won't be at the Mac Crypto conference. I thought it was an excellent idea for him to speak, and think it would still be an excellent idea. I would like to hear his views in a forum more detailed than the short things that go on Cypherpunks. As for me, I'm going to be giving a talk at the conference on using, abusing, and constructing random number generators. The talk is an updated reprise of the talk and paper I gave at MacHack '96. A number of us would also like to hear Tim speak. I'm sure that as a consulting fee we can come up with enough t-shirts and beer that it will make the drive back over 17 even more harrowing than it usually is. I'll toss in a copy of the Macintosh Entropy Manager, but since I'm giving it away to anyone who wants it, it's not much. Perhaps I can autograph a floppy or something. Jon Callas Senior Scientist Apple Labs, Advanced Communications and Collaboration jon(a)taurus.apple.com http://www.merrymeet.com/jon

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Re: Stop the presses -- Anti-terrorism bill not that bad
by JonWienk＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 06 Aug 96, hallam(a)Etna.ai.mit.edu wrote: > >Contrary to reports of some sort of inversion it is not the case that >shell cases need to be found at the scene of a crime to cause an >arrest and conviction. There are many people who are serving time >after having left their fingerprints on shell cases found in a gun >recovered after a crime. If the gun can be linked to a crime scene >via balistics reports and the shells in the gun to an individual via >fingerprints that is circumstansial evidence. I am very skeptical of this. When a gun is fired, the shell casing becomes quite hot--hot enough to burn skin. (I have learned this from experience--once when firing my semi-auto .22 at a range, an ejected casing bounced off a post next to me and landed inside my collar. The resulting burn formed a blister on my neck.) This kind of heat has a tendency to evaporate the skin oils that fingerprints are composed of, which is going to make getting any useful print from the case extremely difficult. Also, when the gun is fired, the pressure inside the case presses it flat against the chamber wall, which is going to smudge the print, especially on semi-autos where extraction occurs while there is still a significant amount of pressure in the case. Furthermore, most shell cases are too small to get anything close to a complete print, which makes positive matching even more difficult. It is much more believable that prints were taken from the gun, which is handled more (thereby collecting more prints) and which generally doesn't reach skin-damaging temperatures. Regardless of feasibility of collecting prints from cases, serial numbers on ammunition is still a stupid idea. Currently, all firearms are required to have serial numbers. However, serial numbers only rarely help solve crimes. Most criminals use weapons that have had the serial number welded over, filed off, etc. or that have been stolen, so the gun is registered in someone else's name, or both. Registration is a vastly more effective tool for the government to know where most of the lawfully owned firearms are (and who owns them) than it is at preventing or solving any crime. Putting serial numbers on ammo has all of the same problems, except the paperwork would be worse because people purchase ammo more frequently than guns. Imagine someone breaks into your house while you are gone, and steals your serial-numbered gun and serial-numbered ammo. Then he uses them to stick up some of the local Stop-N-Rob's in your neighborhood while wearing the same gloves and ski mask he wore at your house. He fires numerous shots and reloads the gun several times, leaving fired cases in each store. After the last robbery, he dumps the gun in a storm drain, burns the gloves and mask, and catches the next flight to Tahiti. Do you really think that serial numbers on the gun or the ammo are going to help YOU? Also, 32 bits of serial number is not enough. Over a billion rounds of .22 Long Rifle are fired in the US annually. Need I say more? Since there are already natural means of positively matching bullets to guns, guns to cases, and guns to fingers, which cannot be used to falsely implicate anyone, , and since the claimed benefits of serial numbering can easily be circumvented by unscrupulous persons (in other words, CRIMINALS) I contend that serial numbers are a much better tool for facilitating a police state than for reducing crime. On Tue, 6 Aug 1996, Rabid Wombat <wombat(a)mcfeely.bsfs.org> wrote: >How about just numbering the criminals? There's more room for the >numbers, there's precedent, and less specialized equipment is required. obCrypto: How about defining the "number" as an MD5 hash of the X-Y coordinates of the entry points of 15 pellets of 00 buckshot in the criminal's chest, sorted in ascending order X, Y? (ORDER BY X ASC, Y ASC) Jonathan Wienke [End of gun rant. Sorry for burning up so much list bandwidth on this, but I recently had an experience where gang members were following me around for several weeks, trying to intimidate me from testifying against some of their friends who beat the crap out of some of my neighbors with sawed-off baseball bats... "Cold, dead, fingers" and all of that.] "A conservative is a liberal who got mugged last night." --Lee Rodgers "1935 will go down in history! For the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead in the future!" --Adolf Hitler "46. The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale, transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. ...Consider the following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government." --The 29 Palms Combat Arms Survey http://www.ksfo560.com/Personalities/Palms.htm 1935 Germany = 1996 U.S.? Key fingerprint = 30 F9 85 7F D2 75 4B C6 BC 79 87 3D 99 21 50 CB

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The Solution: 20 Beautiful women
by Mark Neely 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Fellow Cypherpunks, Maths was never my strong point, but this response (from my statistician g/f) sounds convincing...but then, maybe I'm biased :) -----8<------- According to your friendly neighbourhood statistician (ie me) the answer can be deterined as follows: Suppose we have 20 beautiful women and we call them W1, W2 through to W20. For any given women, say Wi where 1<=i<=20, we have only two choices, choosing her or rejecting her. Knowing that she's beautiful anyway, we assume that: Probability(Choosing Wi)=Probability(Rejecting Wi)=0.5 Now, let Wn where 1<=n<=20 be the most beautiful woman, then the probability of getting the most beautiful woman is: Probability(Getting Wn) =Probability(Rejecting W1) * Probability(Rejecting W2) * Probability(Rejecting W3) * ... * Probability(Rejecting Wn-1) * Probability(Choosing Wn) =(0.5)^(n-1) * (0.5) =(0.5)^n Now we know that the value for a fraction raised to any of the valid values of n (defined above to be 1<=n<=20) can be maximised by minimising the power to which the fraction is raised. So we take the minimum possible value of n, namely n=1. Thus Probability(Getting Wn)=(0.5)^n=0.5. This gives us the highest chance of choosing the most beautiful woman. This could have been done more intuitively and less rigorously by considering the fact that when we multiply any fraction by another fraction, it always becomes a smaller fraction (and hence our probability is reduced). So you can see there is a moral in this story, can you not? I pat myself on the head. I am extremely brilliant. She who is most luscious ___ Mark Neely - accessnt(a)ozemail.com.au Lawyer, Internet Consultant, Professional Cynic Author: Australian Beginner's Guide to the Internet (2nd Ed.) Australian Business Guide to the Internet Internet Guide for Teachers, Students & Parents WWW: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~accessnt

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appropriate algorithm for application
by Cerridwyn Llewyellyn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I need an algorithm/protocol that is capable of encrypting numerous files with separate keys, but there also needs to be a master key that will be able to decrypt all of them. Is there such a system that is relatively secure? I'd prefer the system to be as secure as possible, but in this application, security is secondary to functionality. Thanks... //cerridwyn//

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Re: Freeh slimes again: Digital Telephony costs $2 billion now ...
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>> Louis Freeh is now asking the Congress for $2 billion to fund >>> Digital Telephony. Yes, that is FOUR TIMES what he said it >How many crimes, approximately, are going to be solved or prevented by the >expenditure of this $2 billion dollars? One hundred? A thousand? I haven't been able to find the reference, but a month or two ago there was an article on the net or in a newspaper about the targets of wiretapping - how many wiretaps were for drugs, gambling, tax evasion, and of course terrorism. The number of wiretaps for bombs and guns was something low like 80 in the last 5-10 years - about 1/10%. (Did anybody else see this article??) On the other hand, the recent articles in the press about increasing bomb-related crimes in the US; it's up to about 3000/year from 2000 in 5 yrs. So maybe 1/10% of the bombing investigations have even used wiretapping. So why is Louis Freeh ranting up and down about the need to ban encryption because he needs wiretapping to catch terrorists? At least he could be honest and rant about the need to stop the hordes of drug dealers and escalate the War On Gambling. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Defuse Authority!

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Re: Corporate e-mail policy
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> "Electronic mail may be monitored if there is sufficient reason to > believe that it is being improperly used which includes, but is not > limited to: mail to competitors, more than 20 recipients (spam), and > incoming mail from questionable sources. If such monitored mail is > encrypted the employee must provide a clear text version of the mail > which is to be unencrypted under supervision to avoid substitutions. > Any employee refusing to make available such mail will be ...." Official mail to competitors, the press, or customers is probably something you'd want an official copy of anyway, and the employee should be able to decide intelligently what to keep (unless your lawyers say to always keep everything, in which case the legal department should be responsible for maintaining the archives....) Incoming encrypted mail you can (presumably) get an employee to decrypt. Outgoing encrypted mail may not support that - PGP, for instance, supports an encrypt-to-self option, but if you don't use it, and didn't record the outgoing message, you _can't_ decrypt it. Writing something into a policy that will get an employee fired for refusing to do something that can't be done with the available tools is not a good idea. I'm not highly impressed with the idea of snooping on employees' mail, even if it _is_ your company. If you don't trust them, don't hire them. If you do trust them, don't eavesdrop. And if they're ripping you off and don't have the sense to sneak their sotlen data outside the building by sneakernet or other untappable mechanism, you probably should have fired them for incompetence long ago anyway. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Defuse Authority!

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Re: e$: Watching the MacRubble Bounce
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If you're wanting someone to talk on NuPrometheus, you might try Barlow.... he's already been investigated for it and doesn't seem likely to be harrassed again. Of course, _getting_ him could be a problem. -Allen

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Re: Fixes to loop.c et al. for DES,IDEA,stego now done
by Julian Assange 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > > > This directory contains patches to the Linux kernel to enable encryption and > > steganography of filesystems. Encryption allows you to have a scrambled > > partition or file that, with the proper pass phrase, you can mount, just > > like a normal filesystem. Steganography allows you to hide a filesystem in > > the low bits of, say, an audio file. You can even combine these two to hide > > a scrambled filesystem in the low bits of an audio file (see the example, > > below). > > > > With the addition of stego, this arrangment seems to be rather similar to > CFS. So the question on my mind, is can the loop device(s) be Since when has CFS had any steganography features? -- "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_ +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+ |Julian Assange RSO | PO Box 2031 BARKER | Secret Analytic Guy Union | |proff(a)suburbia.net | VIC 3122 AUSTRALIA | finger for PGP key hash ID = | |proff(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu | FAX +61-3-98199066 | 0619737CCC143F6DEA73E27378933690 | +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+

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re:THE WORLD IS SCREWD UP
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:02 PM 8/6/96 -0500, you wrote: >THIS WORLD IS SREWED UP i hate my life so mue hobbeys makeing time pipe >bommbs so what is this all about huh what the fuck "anti terrisiom bill" >damn sad ok so what does this mean FREE COUNTRY hahahaha i laugh when i >hear that term there is no free country and we never have a wright to >privesy u know man this sux so much....... oh and to the government u can >kiss my ass TAKE it to a shrink... not Cypherpunks! Ps. learn to spell!

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Re: Censorship through proxy
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 18:12 8/6/96, Timothy C. May wrote: >I wonder what would happen if "Computers, Freedom, and Privacy '98" was >held in Sing Sing? We'd all get caned? -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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"Eternity service" paper request
by Allen Robinson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Tue Aug 06 20:53:31 1996 A couple of weeks ago Hal mentioned Ross Anderson's Eternity Service paper (URL: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk:80/users/rja14/#Lib) As Hal described it at the time: >The goal of the Eternity service is to make published information >permanently and ineradicably available, despite efforts on the part of >powerful attackers to destroy it. The attack model explicitly >includes governments. This has obvious relevance to current >controversies involving copyright, trade secrets, etc. [. . . .] >Anderson's basic concept is of a network of storage servers in widely >scattered jurisdictions. He uses cryptography so that although the >servers store data, no single computer knows exactly what is stored in >the encrypted files it holds. Keys to the data are spread across the >network using secret sharing techniques, with mutual cooperation among >the servers being necessary to decrypt files. (I believe the files >themselves are redundantly stored on individual servers, but they are >encrypted with keys which are split.) Anonymous communications are >used among the network of computers to reply to requests, so that >attackers can't tell which computer produced a requested document. At the time I thought this sounds quite interesting and filed the information away for a time when I would have an opportunity to get the paper and read it. I finally created that opportunity recently only to find the paper at the above URL in a format I have a *lot* of difficulty reading. I'm a little embarrassed to ask such a thing, but does anyone know a location where this paper resides in plain-vanilla ASCII? Many thanks. AR #%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%# "The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth." -- Bill Clinton, Oct. 15, 1995 at the University of Connecticut. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Allen Robinson.........................sebago(a)earthlink.net PGP public key FE4A0A75 available from major keyservers fingerprint 170FBC1F7609B76F 967F1CC8FCA7A41F -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMgf3H3sdZ07+Sgp1AQHEYQP/cthh/U8MwguYjuDJkrMNScwCaLrBm+rv 7SJS5Oogln7ItVfMDCUGISVNABCg4gr4taqW8OnStmegZxqsYJevLu5qYVTPvdWG wPDbBu2rHfHc6aHS1am727Vv9EJTb452tlDkXQuQApH4TUh9mYUe6oIxVenKSxNC jbPGgzxgvvo= =qhoi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Fixes to loop.c et al. for DES,IDEA,stego now done
by Ian Goldberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- As I mentioned before, the hooks to DES (and IDEA; with Nicholas Leon's patches) in loop.c and {mount,losetup}(8) are horribly broken. For example, the DES key you type in is totally ignored, and only the first byte of the IDEA key you enter is relevant. As well, the DES code was using PCBC mode, and IDEA was using ECB mode. I've fixed the key management (the key is based on a SHA1 hash of the pass phrase you enter), and changed both DES and IDEA to use CBC mode. Adding other encryption methods (Blowfish, for example) should be straightforward. In fact, I'm planning to add a facility for dynamically adding and removing general data transformation modules (maybe for 2.1...). In addition, I've implemented steganography (hiding a filesystem in the low bits of, say, an audio file), and fixed some assorted bugs in loop.c (incorrect variables were being used in some places, and a deadlock was fixed having to do with making a loop device on top of another loop device). The patches are available from: ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/filesystems/linux/index.html Since that site seems to be down a lot, there's an alternate site: ftp://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/pub/linux-stego/index.html Note that there's one file that contains crypto that users outside of the US and Canada must not download. See below for further details and instructions. Attached is the text version of index.html. Share and enjoy. - Ian - -----------------8<--------------------8<---------------- Encryption and Steganography for Linux This directory contains patches to the Linux kernel to enable encryption and steganography of filesystems. Encryption allows you to have a scrambled partition or file that, with the proper pass phrase, you can mount, just like a normal filesystem. Steganography allows you to hide a filesystem in the low bits of, say, an audio file. You can even combine these two to hide a scrambled filesystem in the low bits of an audio file (see the example, below). Installation instructions 1. Get a fresh copy of linux-2.0.11.tar.gz from your favourite site. 2. Patch it with the loopfix-2.0.11.patch file found in this directory. This fixes some bugs in the loop block device driver, and adds steganography support to it. Hopefully this will go into the standard kernel soon. 3. Now you want to add cryptography support. Due to a strange US regulation, this has to be split up into two pieces. The first piece, export-2.0.11.patch, doesn't actually contain any cryptograhy; it just contains the changes to the Makefiles and documentation, etc. to reflect the eventual presence of cryptography. You should get this file and patch it into the result of step 2. 4. If the site you are downloading these files from is in the US or Canada, you may only download the second piece, crypto-2.0.11.patch, if you are also in the US or Canada. If you are not, here's what's in the file, and where to get it: o The file contains the files drivers/block/idea.c, kernel/des.c, include/linux/idea.h and include/linux/des.h. o To get these files, go visit http://www.binary9.net/nicholas/linuxkernel/patches/ and get the patches des-1.0.patch and idea-1.0.patch. o Edit these patches and remove everything in them that isn't related to one of the four files listed above. o What you have left should be functionally equivalent to crypto-2.0.11.patch. 5. Take either crypto-2.0.11.patch or what you got from outside the US, and patch it into the result of step 3. 6. You now have a complete kernel. Compile as usual. You will also need an updated version of the mount and losetup commands in order to use this. To get these, download mount-2.5k from ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux/util/mount-2.5k.tar.gz. Then get the patch mount-2.5k.patch from this directory, and patch it into the sources. Compile and install. It would be really good if these patches to the kernel and to mount for steganography and encryption were made standard, and enabled by default. The reason for this is that it would be more suspicious for someone to have a "special" kernel with stego capabilities than to just have a regular kernel, configured in the default way. Sample encrypted and stego'd filesystem In this directory are two audio files. Alice-Bob.orig.au is a file I downloaded from http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/labs/theorique/Alice-Bob.html. The other file, Alice-Bob.au, is the same, except that it has an encrypted filesystem hidden in the low bit of each byte. You can listen to each of them, and see how much difference there is (it's just in the noise). To see the filesystem, get a new kernel and mount/losetup as descibed above. Also make sure you have loop devices in /dev/loop*, as described below. Then: # losetup -e stego /dev/loop0 Alice-Bob.au Use the low bits of each (b)yte, (s)hort, or (l)ong? (Use lowercase letters for little-endian; uppercase for big-endian.) b/s/l/B/S/L: [b] # mount /dev/loop0 /mnt -oloop,encryption=idea Pass phrase: What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain? # ls -al /mnt total 220 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 Aug 4 10:47 ./ drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 1024 Aug 4 01:50 ../ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 Aug 4 10:46 lost+found/ - -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 71 Aug 4 10:47 passwords - -rw------- 1 root root 208247 Aug 4 10:47 world_domination_plans # umount /mnt # losetup -d /dev/loop0 Usage instructions First, make sure you have devices called /dev/loop0, /dev/loop1, ..., /dev/loop7. If not, make them as follows: # cd /dev # for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7; do mknod loop$i b 7 $i; done # chgrp disk /dev/loop[0-7] # chmod 660 /dev/loop[0-7] A note on choosing pass phrases: Pass phrases can be up to 128 characters long. It's in your best interests to choose a good one. Make it long, and hard to guess. There are FAQs out there on how to choose a good pass phrase, I think. Finally, here is a copy of the file Documentation/filesystems/loop_crypt.txt: Encryption and Steganography for Linux - -------------------------------------- The "loop" block device driver allows you to "hide" a filesystem in a disk partition or in a regular file, either using encryption (scrambling the data) or steganography (hiding the data in the low bits of, say, a sound file). To use this, you will need updated versions of the "mount" and "losetup" commands. They are both in the mount-2.5k, which you can get from ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux/util/mount-2.5k.tar.gz but you will need to patch it with the changes from ftp://ftp.csua.berkley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/filesystems/linux/mount-2.5k.pat… Also, if you want to use DES or IDEA encryption and not just XOR (which, encryptionwise, is really terrible), you'll need to get the crypto patches to the kernel. If you're in the US or Canada, you can get them from ftp://ftp.csua.berkley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/filesystems/linux/crypto.patch Otherwise, check ftp://ftp.csua.berkley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/filesystems/linux/index.html to see how to get them. How to use it - ------------- Here are a number of examples: To create an encrypted floppy (using IDEA): Put a floppy in drive 0. # dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/fd0 bs=1k seek=8 # losetup -e idea /dev/loop0 /dev/fd0 Pass phrase: (type a pass phrase here, up to 128 characters) # mke2fs /dev/loop0 # losetup -d /dev/loop0 To use it again: # mount /dev/fd0 /mnt -text2 -oloop,encryption=idea Pass phrase: (type the same pass phrase) # cd /mnt (use the disk) # cd / # umount /mnt To make a DES-encrypted filesystem in a regular file: Decide on a filename and how big you want your encrypted filesystem to be. Suppose you choose /root/private/rndseed as your filename, and you want it to be 10MB (10240K). Create it as follows: # dd if=/dev/urandom of=/root/private/rndseed bs=1k count=10240 # losetup -e des /dev/loop0 /root/private/rndseed Pass phrase: (type a pass phrase here, up to 128 characters) # mke2fs /dev/loop0 # losetup -d /dev/loop0 To use it: # mount /root/private/rndseed /mnt -text2 -oloop,encryption=des Pass phrase: (type the same pass phrase) # cd /mnt (use the disk) # cd / # umount /mnt There is an additional "feature" (well, _I_ think it's a feature) by which you could mount the above filesystem on /root/private, even though a file in that directory is being used to store the filesystem itself. (Note of course that the encrypted file won't be visible when the filesystem is mounted, and that only loop files don't count as "usage"; if you're _in_ that directory, or some process has any file in that directory open, the mount won't work.) To hide an IDEA-encrypted filesystem in the low bits of an audio file: Let "penguin.au" be your sound file. # losetup -e stego /dev/loop0 penguin.au Use the low bits of each (b)yte, (s)hort, or (l)ong? (Use lowercase letters for little-endian; uppercase for big-endian.) b/s/l/B/S/L: [b] (.au files store 1-byte samples, so say "b" here) # dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/loop0 bs=1k seek=8 # losetup -e idea /dev/loop1 /dev/loop0 Pass phrase: (type a pass phrase here, up to 128 characters) # mke2fs /dev/loop1 # losetup -d /dev/loop1 # losetup -d /dev/loop0 And to use it: # losetup -e stego /dev/loop0 penguin.au Use the low bits of each (b)yte, (s)hort, or (l)ong? (Use lowercase letters for little-endian; uppercase for big-endian.) b/s/l/B/S/L: [b] (.au files store 1-byte samples, so say "b" here) # mount /dev/loop0 /mnt -text2 -oloop,encryption=idea Pass phrase: (type a pass phrase here, up to 128 characters) # cd /mnt (read secret info from files here) # cd / # umount /mnt # losetup -d /dev/loop0 Note: if you don't have /dev/urandom, do this: # cd /dev # mknod random c 1 8 # mknod urandom c 1 9 # chown root.root random urandom # chmod 666 random urandom Last update: 19960806 by Ian Goldberg <ian(a)cypherpunks.ca> This work derives from work by a number of people, including: Werner Almesberger <almesber(a)bernina.ethz.ch> Andries Brouwer <Andries.Brouwer(a)cwi.nl> Ian Goldberg <ian(a)cypherpunks.ca> Nicholas J. Leon <nicholas(a)binary9.net> Theodore Ts'o <tytso(a)athena.mit.edu> Eric Young <eay(a)psych.psy.uq.oz.au> - -----------------8<--------------------8<---------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMgfZsEZRiTErSPb1AQGf9wP8Cu0h79vowZVME3dJGhCQM8AbelCOHEck O51uZ6o5Fwv3mPsZ0E15IyYns1mLYT4slWQ2VY2vEoTsT6pM4og+45/ZP3aRJh5i mBgNulbRvxf/eqlmDBT6433JFrdAVAWHwGcMFTUXewHQJZ3x4WyIzvk1hHv++OGo jn96Pbr71Qs= =13QI -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Apple people on the list
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'd like to hear Tim, too, in this Big Apple. RealAudio, perhaps. Tim's views are far more substantial and worthwhile than those play-it-safe Pro-Code dronings. And his pith should go out far and wide, around the world, not only out there on its edge. Vinnie, Robert, All Appledom, do your global duty, don't miss this chance to leapfrog the small-beans promoters of the crypto industry. What would you offer to set off Tim's simmering crypto-anarcho-volcano, make it heard round the planet?

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Re: e$: Watching the MacRubble Bounce
by Christopher Hull 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >I, for one, would appreciate the chance to hear Tim May present >"crypto-anarchy" and "crypto-privacy" -- in a much more coherent fashion > >Vinnie is putting the "Mac Crypto" conference together in his spare >time using "borrowed" facilities in a way that stays below Apple's >"radar horizon". Ah, so I'm not the only one who makes nefarious use of R&D4 (Burning Man, Mike Jittlov, and other pseudo-events) ;-) Looking forward to it. > >As for the "Mac is dead," I'll leave that to another time and place. The press is a little difficult to believe when they come out with nonsense like "Apple is finally upgrading an aging product line". Excuse me? Yes, the last new Mac one could buy was the IIfx? San Jose Mercury News, A Division of Microsoft Press. (I wonder if I should extend the Shakespeare award beyond the net). -Chris .. But there *are* a million monkees on the net, .. and I still aint seen no Shakespeare! <me> ... ... smtp: nozefngr(a)apple.com .. page: 1.800.680.7351 .. http: http://virtual.net/Personal/nozefngr/ .. icbm: lat37*21'.lon121*5' .. .. the kabuki project: http://remarque.berkeley.edu/kabuki/

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